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Her Pregnancy Surprise
Kim Lawrence
Maggie Cox
Barbara McMahon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

His Pregnancy Bargain

By

Kim Lawrence

Kim Lawrence lives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU said what?’

Even the anonymity of the phone could not disguise the natural authority in his most famous client’s voice or, at that moment, the irritation and astonishment that had crept into the distinctive deep tones.

It had been a good idea not to have this particular conversation face to face, decided Malcolm, who was starting to feel uncomfortably like a man stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Yes, the analogy worked—if his sister was the rock, Luc could easily be considered a hard place.

Eyes slightly narrowed, Malcolm summoned an image of the younger man’s startlingly good-looking face. The sharp jutting cheekbones, an aggressively angular jaw a wide, mobile mouth capable of issuing painfully blunt comments, and deep-set eyes. He gave a mental shudder as he considered those penetrating, spookily pale grey eyes. No doubt about it, Luc definitely constituted a hard place…a very hard place!

When Malcolm had initially met the first-time author of the sexy action thriller that had landed on his desk, he hadn’t been able to believe his luck. Luc wasn’t only incredibly photogenic, he was articulate and witty. Malcolm’s visions of women snatching the book off the shelves after they’d seen his new client charming the pants off the public on the chat-show circuit were dashed when the guy had calmly announced that he was a writer, not a salesman.

Luc had spelt out his conditions to Malcolm. He wasn’t available for interviews or photo opportunities; in fact he wanted to remain anonymous. If the books weren’t good enough to sell on their own merits, so be it.

Malcolm’s argument that one unfortunate experience at the hands of the press was not sufficient reason to make a disastrous business decision had not impressed Luc who, never one to take anyone’s word for anything, had had a clause inserted in his contract.

Malcolm injected a note of desperate bonhomie into his voice. ‘I was sure you’d love to come for the weekend so I sort of, well, I…I said you would.’

Perversely the silence that greeted his confession was more nerve-shredding than a tirade of angry abuse might be—Luc didn’t get loud when he was mad.

The words ‘soft but deadly’ sprang unbidden into Malcolm’s head.

‘It’ll all be very casual. No need to dress up. Charming woman, my sister—everyone loves her parties.’

Luc squinted up at the wall he had just painted. It really hadn’t looked that blue on the label and the room was north facing…too cold. It would have to go.

‘Have you developed a sense of humour, Mal? Or have you gone totally insane?’ The latter explanation seemed much more likely to Luc.

‘I know how you get after you’ve delivered a book.’

‘Relieved…?’

‘A weekend in the country is just what you need,’ pronounced the editor firmly.

‘I live in the country,’ came the deceptively gentle reminder.

‘No, you live in the back of beyond,’ Malcolm corrected with an audible shudder in his beautifully modulated voice. ‘I’m talking about Sussex; they have pavements there.’

The observation made Luc smile, but Malcolm, on the other end of the line, didn’t have the comfort of seeing the warmth it lent his lean, dark features.

‘Only recently someone persuaded me that what I needed was a place in town…losing touch with reality, someone said, I seem to recall…? Now who was that? Oh, I remember—you!’

‘Good company, excellent food…’ Malcolm had a rare talent for selective deafness, which came in handy at moments like this. ‘You like old things, don’t you…? My brother-in-law was a great collector and they tell me the house is Elizabethan in parts, a moat, the whole thing,’ he finished vaguely before producing his winning argument. ‘Ghosts…!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They have a ghost—several, I expect. Never seen them myself, of course, but…people doing psychical research come to look in the cellar and they open to the public on bank holidays so it must be something special.’

At the other end of the line the thought of the landed gentry brought a disdainful sneer to Luc’s face. Personal experience had not given him a rosy view of the families who had once divided the wealth of the country between them. His father had worked on an estate as a forester until the titled owners had decided to turf him out of his tied cottage.

A job and home lost in one fell swoop, and all his dad had done was tug his forelock respectfully when they had explained that tourists were a more cost-effective way to utilise their resources. It was the meekness, the way he had accepted his fate that had filled Luc, then ten, with seething anger.

He had resolved on the spot that he would never bow and scrape to anyone. This resolve had been hardened into grim resolution as he had watched the defeated droop of his father’s shoulders become permanent over the months that had followed.

He had been more adaptable than his father, who had struggled to fit in the large industrial town they had moved to. It hadn’t been an accident that he’d lost the country burr that had made him the obvious target of bullies in the inner-city school.

Luc was a survivor.

Malcolm continued. ‘Gilbert left my sister pots of money. Do you shoot, Luc?’

‘Shoot?’ Luc ejaculated in a tone of disgust. ‘What is this—Gosford Park?’

‘I meant clays,’ Malcolm hastened to explain amiably.

‘The only thing I shoot are editors who accept invitations on my behalf.’ A spasm of curiosity crossed his handsome face. ‘I’m interested—you knew I wouldn’t agree, so why on earth did you say I would?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t like it, but I just heard myself saying it.’ Impossible of course to make someone like Luc understand. ‘You don’t know my sister,’ Malcolm added darkly. ‘When she wants something she’s relentless, like a dripping tap.’

‘Sounds like a delightful hostess,’ Luc interjected drily.

‘She’s an enormous fan of yours. You’d be treated like royalty, I swear.’

‘I have no desire to be treated as royalty and I would be a major disappointment as a house guest…’

‘As a favour to me…?’ his editor cajoled.

‘She can have an autographed copy of my next book.’

‘She already has one, your signature is really very easy to fake.’

Malcolm decided that Luc’s reluctant laugh was a sign the younger man was mellowing and pressed his advantage.

‘Laura’s been on at me for ages about you. Now, with Megan being thirty next month, and the lawyer chap breaking his leg last minute…’ A huge sigh reverberated down the line.

‘Who or what is Megan?’

‘My niece, lovely girl…not married.’

An expression of amused comprehension crossed Luc’s lean face. ‘Am I invited because your sister is looking for a mug to partner her daughter?’

‘Megan is a lovely girl,’ Malcolm protested. ‘Great personality. Takes after her father in the looks department, of course, but you can’t have everything.’

Luc listened in growing amusement to the flow of confidences…from the moment he had walked into Malcolm’s office he had wanted to dislike the other man. He represented everything Luc despised, from his accent to his privileged background. Yet Malcolm also possessed charm, he was basically a very likeable guy and, as Luc had learnt, despite his vague attitude, no pushover when it came to business.

‘Do all the members of your family live in a previous century?’

Malcolm Hall’s voice took on an ill-used quality as he responded to this incredulous query. ‘Well, really, Lucas, I don’t think it’s much to ask considering what I’ve done for you. You really can be selfish, do you know that?’ he complained.

Luc didn’t resent the observation; he considered it was essentially true. He didn’t enjoy money for its own sake, but he did enjoy the freedom it gave him. He considered himself a lucky man that doing what he enjoyed enabled him to live life on his terms.

It hadn’t felt like it at the time, but with hindsight Luc recognised that losing his business the way he had had been one of the best things that had happened to him. If it hadn’t been for his embezzling ex-partner he would never have shut himself in a room and worked for three weeks solid on the novel he had always meant to finish.

‘I suppose I could tell Laura you have flu…’

‘You can tell Laura anything you like, so long as it isn’t I’d love to come to her party.’ He liked Malcolm but that didn’t mean he had the slightest intention of enduring a weekend being nice to people he had nothing whatever in common with.

It hadn’t required enormous powers of deduction to discover where he lived, just a sneaky look in her uncle’s address book.

Lucas Patrick, the best-selling author of a string of commercial and critically acclaimed novels, resided in the penthouse apartment of a warehouse conversion beside the river, the one that had won a whole bunch of awards the previous year. It was an address that didn’t appear on the flyleaf of his numerous novels, but then neither did a suitably moody-looking black-and-white snapshot of the author.

Was the man genuinely allergic to publicity or was it a clever marketing ploy? Megan was not sure, but what was indisputable was that his point-blank refusal to promote his books had boosted his sales and turned him into an enigmatic hero-type figure not unlike the one that featured in his books. And Uncle Malcolm had been no help; the only thing he had let slip was that his most famous client was single and young.

If, when he went public, the writer turned out in the end to have middle-aged spread or a receding hairline there were going to be a lot of disappointed fans out there, her own mother included! she thought with a wry smile. Megan hoped he was presentable—it would make her idea a lot easier to pull off.

She paused, her finger hovering above the appropriate button, seized by last minute doubts about what she was doing. Last night this had seemed a truly inspired idea. In the cold light of day she didn’t feel quite so confident that she was doing the right thing…she was even starting to wonder if it might not be a little crazy…?

But then desperate circumstances, she reminded herself, called for desperate measures!

What was the worst that could happen…?

Nothing as bad as what was going to happen if she didn’t take some drastic action. Last Easter’s efforts were still indelibly etched in Megan’s mind. It had been totally excruciating and obvious to everybody but the hostess herself that the investment banker she had invited for the weekend as a potential husband for her spinster daughter was gay.

Megan loved her mother dearly, in fact she would have been the perfect parent if it weren’t for her unswerving devotion to marrying off Megan!

Laura Semple had a simple philosophy—no woman could be happy without a man.

The conversation they had had over breakfast that very morning was more or less the same one they’d been having ever since Megan had decided not to marry the ever-so-suitable Brian four years earlier. Brian, who had turned out to be, not caring and protective in a charming, old-fashioned way, but a fully-fledged, possessive control freak who wanted her to account for every minute of her day and who got jealous when she talked to another man—any man.

Megan considered herself to have had a lucky escape, a view not shared by her mother.

‘Of course I’m proud of what you’ve achieved, darling, but you can’t tell me you’re happy…not really happy.’

‘You don’t have a man, Mum.’

‘That,’ Laura rebutted firmly, ‘is not the same thing at all. I’ll never love a man the way I did your father.’

Megan saw the tears in her mother’s eyes before she turned her head.

‘There are lots of different loves.’ Her own throat thickened with emotion as she gently squeezed her mother’s hand. ‘And actually I am happy.’

Her claim met with polite but open scepticism.

‘I promise you, Mum, I’m perfectly content.’

‘“Content” is a very middle-aged word, Megan,’ her mother disapproved with a sigh.

‘Maybe I’m one of those people that are born middle-aged…?’

‘Oh, I know you put a brave face on it,’ Laura continued, ignoring this flippant interjection. ‘But, no matter what they say, no woman is totally fulfilled without a man.’

Megan bit her tongue and carried on smiling, past experience had taught her it was a waste of breath to argue this particular point.

‘In your case a strong man I think,’ Laura mused. ‘One who isn’t intimidated by your brains. Now Lucas Patrick doesn’t sound to me like a man who is likely to lack confidence. The way he coped when his plane went down in the Andes…’

‘That was his hero. He writes fiction, Mother,’ Megan reminded her parent. ‘He doesn’t spend his life scaling impregnable peaks, busting international drug cartels or fighting off beautiful women who want to ravish him.’

‘I am perfectly able to distinguish fact from fiction,’ her mother retorted with dignity. ‘But your uncle says he’s scrupulous about his research and he never asks his hero to do anything he hasn’t himself.’

‘I seriously doubt if that includes crash-landing a plane and walking away without a scratch,’ Megan muttered under her breath, then added in a louder voice, ‘And the fact is you wouldn’t know him from the man who delivers the milk. He’ll probably turn out to be a regular anorak.’ Her brow furrowed. ‘And why on earth is he coming to one of your country weekends…?’

‘I was a man short and your uncle Malcolm is his publisher; he’s coming along with him. Well, he was—it turns out your uncle can’t make it, but he says that Lucas is looking forward enormously to meeting us.’

‘So you’ve only Uncle Malcolm’s word that he’s coming…?’ In her experience, to stop his sister nagging her uncle would promise literally anything. ‘Was Uncle Malcolm sober at the time…?’

‘Don’t be rude,’ Laura reprimanded. ‘And if you possess a skirt, pack it for the weekend, dear, do. You have very pretty legs—in fact you really are a very pretty girl, or would be if you took a little more effort. First impressions do count, Megan.’

Back to the task in hand, Megan squared her shoulders with resolution and, with a deep breath, she pressed the button. This idea might be a long shot but she just had to try. If Lucas Patrick was game she had figured out a fairly foolproof way to get her mother off her back and keep her happy.

A voice over the intercom responded almost immediately.

‘About time too…’ It was a deep voice, a bit gravelly at the edges and decidedly cranky which didn’t bode too well for her plans.

‘This is—’

‘Yeah…yeah, you’re here now. Just bring it up.’ There was a buzz and the glass door swung open.

Megan shrugged and walked inside.

The lift rose smoothly and quickly, giving her no opportunity to change her mind. She knocked on the ajar door to the penthouse and heard the same impatient voice.

‘Just bring it in—the money’s on the table. If there are no extra anchovies don’t take the tip.’

Oh, God, he’s expecting a pizza and he’s got a woman who wants him to pretend to be desperately in love with her!

Megan cleared her throat and looked curiously around the vast open-plan living space. With its steel support columns and lofty vaulted ceiling, it wasn’t what she considered homey. She couldn’t imagine coming here after a tough day, kicking off her shoes, pouring a glass of wine and switching on the telly. No, this was strictly bachelor territory and a rich bachelor at that, she thought, but then by all accounts the owner was worth a small fortune.

It was hard to gauge his taste as what furniture there was was covered in dust-sheets. Her nose wrinkled; the place was permeated with the smell of paint and turps.

She cleared her throat and projected her voice to reach the invisible and grouchy presence. ‘Mr Patrick, I’m afraid…’ As the word left her mouth a lean, broad-shouldered figure materialised in a doorway.

Megan was pretty hopeless when it came to ages but she put this hunk somewhere in his early thirties. He was also tall, well over six feet, and dressed in tatty paint-stained jeans and a tee shirt that was clean but looked as though it had shrunk in the wash. The shrinkage meant it was impossible not to notice how well-developed his lean torso was. The tee shirt also revealed an inch or so of lean, flat belly and gave a glimpse of the thin line of dark hair that disappeared suggestively beneath the loose waistband of his jeans.

His dark flyaway brows drew together above a strong aquiline nose as he frowned suspiciously across at her.

‘Who the hell are you?’ he demanded as he dragged a hand through his collar-length sable hair that gleamed with health and was liberally speckled with blue paint. The jagged ends that rested on the nape of his brown neck suggested he hadn’t seen the inside of a hair salon for some time.

This was the sort of guy who had women falling out of upper-storey windows to get a better look at him.

His presence undetected at first Luc had had an opportunity to study his intruder. Dressed casually as she was in jeans, there was nothing to distinguish this young woman from any number of others you saw in the street, except perhaps that this one appeared to carry herself with a certain air of quiet assurance.

She was tall and slim with hair like warm honey and candid china-blue eyes, which widened as they met his. The colour was so dramatically intense it could almost constitute an assault on the senses, he decided. The eyes had the sort of impact that made you not notice at first that her nose was undistinguished and her jaw slightly too determined. As far as he could tell she wasn’t wearing any make-up, something she could get away with because her skin was smooth, the colour of milk and flawless.

Despite the fact she wasn’t his type Luc felt his interest sharpen.

Megan’s generous mouth tightened. Being a fairly direct person herself, she could appreciate the characteristic in others, but his question hadn’t been brusque, more downright rude!

Clearly she had not made a favourable first impression on the decorator…she’d have to do a lot better with his employer if this wasn’t going to be a total waste of time and energy.

‘I’m Dr Semple.’ Somehow what was meant to be a simple statement of fact emerged sounding pompous, but men this good-looking always made her feel slightly defensive…not that she had ever seen a man this good-looking.

His dark brows soared and the corners of his wide mouth twisted…something definitely cruel about that mouth, Megan decided, raising her glance hurriedly to eye level as something deep in her stomach twisted.

She sounded as cool and sure of herself as she looked. Luc liked her voice and found himself wondering what she would look like flustered. That hair spread out around her flushed…Don’t go there, Luc.

He spread his expressive hands wide, inviting her inspection. ‘Do I look like I have need of a doctor?’ she heard him demand with vitality leaking out of every gorgeous pore.

He looked, from the top of his dark head to his…Her eyes dropped and her tummy did a crazy little back flip as she registered that his feet were the same even, toasty brown as the rest of him—at least the bits she could see. Not that she had any desire to see any more—what she was seeing was quite enough!

No doubt he’d be standing there oozing the same level of self-assurance if he had been bare all over.

Megan lowered her eyes quickly as the image that accompanied this maverick thought brought a lick of heat to her pale cheeks.

‘I’m not that sort of doctor,’ she mumbled. With thoughts like hers it was just as well—she’d have been struck off!

When she looked up a moment later he was still surveying her in unfriendly silence. The moment and the silence lasted too long for her comfort. His expression remained vaguely hostile as he brushed a hand carelessly along his chiselled jaw—God, but this man had perfect bones!—leaving a faint smudge of paint against his olive skin.

For no logical reason she could figure, she found herself wondering what he would do if she licked her finger and wiped the offending mark away from his smooth, blemish-free skin. She took a deep breath, horrified by the direction of her wilful imagination.

It was time to take control here.

CHAPTER TWO

LUC had obviously reached the same conclusion and he got in before Megan.

‘I don’t know how you got in here, Doctor, but I’d like you to go back the way you came.’

Or else—unspoken but definite, the warning hung in the air.

It wasn’t his threatening posture that bothered Megan, it was the illicit and inexplicable little shiver that traced a path up her spine. Good looks, even ones as spectacular as his, she could take in her stride. At a subconscious level she recognised it was the earthy, sensual quality that he possessed in abundance that had her standing there like some inarticulate teenager.

She blinked, determined to rectify any false impression she had given that she was a brainless bimbo. Actually she had forgotten to breathe, which might account for the dizzy sensation; she took a deep, gulping gasp and immediately felt a little better.

‘Well, unless your short-term memory is shot to hell you ought to know…you asked me in,’ she reminded him.

A flicker of something that might have been surprise flickered behind his sensational eyes for a split second before shoulders that any athlete would have envied lifted fractionally. ‘And now I’m asking you to leave.’

This was no invitation—it was an order.

Megan’s chin went up the same way it had been doing, if her mother was to be believed, for twenty-nine years whenever she had been told what to do. ‘I came to see Mr Patrick.’

The grey eyes narrowed but stayed like lasers on her focused face. The dark rings surrounding his irises highlighted the pale metallic colour of his eyes.

Did he ever blink…?

He gave another graceful shrug. ‘Well, as you can see, I’m the only one here.’ He placed the towel he had been holding on a dust-cloth covered table and picked up a bottle of mineral water. He unscrewed the top and raised it to his lips.

So she’d been dismissed…? Did he actually think she was going to leave just because he told her to…? The angry glow in her eyes became distracted as she watched the contraction of muscles in his brown neck as he swallowed, there was a faint sheen of moisture on his skin. She looked away.

‘Is Mr Patrick likely to be home soon?’

‘Are you a friend of his or just a groupie?’

Her outraged attention swung back to his mocking, handsome face. His insulting cynicism brought an angry flush to her face, or did that rise in temperature have something to do with the beads of moisture he brushed off his sensual lips…?

‘I hardly think that’s any of your business,’ she retorted haughtily. ‘Perhaps you’d like to carry on with whatever Mr Patrick is paying you to do, other than eat pizzas.’

He looked amused. ‘Even a humble painter is allowed a lunch break, Doctor. Would you like me to give the boss a message?’ he offered, casually looping the towel around his neck. The action revealed another inch of smooth, hard flesh.

Megan swallowed and lowered her gaze. ‘It’s personal.’

‘You wish.’

Pale grey eyes clashed with turbulent blue.

‘I’ll wait,’ she announced frigidly. Other than physically remove her, he couldn’t do much about it, and if he did come over heavy handed she’d stick him with a lawsuit for assault before he could blink!

‘Suit yourself,’ he drawled. ‘But then I’m sure you generally do.’ This woman had spoilt and privileged written all over her, from her smooth voice to her assured manner.

Just as Megan’s bottom made contact with the dust-sheet-covered chair there was a sudden upheaval beneath her that sent her with a startled shriek to her feet.

A bundle of spitting fury struck out at her with sharp claws as it hurtled across the room like a ginger flash of lightning.

‘Ouch!’ she yelled. ‘That thing scratched me.’ Rolling up the right leg of her jeans revealed a long, though admittedly shallow, scratch along her calf.

‘That thing is called Sybil and you did sit on her. Poor cat,’ he crooned to the cat from the flat downstairs.

Megan wasn’t surprised to see the animal respond to his velvety croon, and in lightning transformation. That voice…! She could imagine any number of women who were old enough to know better purring if he used that voice on them.

‘Is the skin broken?’

‘I’ll live,’ she replied, rolling down her trouser leg. Superficial or not, the scratch stung. ‘Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?’

‘Who?’

Megan gave an impatient grimace. ‘Mr Patrick.’

‘Oh, him…he’ll be back in the country some time next month, I understand.’

Megan, her high hopes dashed by the casual revelation, felt her face fall. ‘But he has to be back before then,’ she protested.

‘Really…?’

‘He’s spending next weekend in the country with us.’

‘Maybe it slipped his mind…?’

Megan, who had flopped disconsolately into the cat-free chair, cast him a look of scorn. ‘Or maybe Uncle Malcolm lied through his teeth,’ she muttered half to herself.

Look on the bright side, she told herself, no eligible suitor equalled not being paired off with anyone, and it always had been a long shot.

The bad news was there would be other weekends!

‘Malcolm Hall is your uncle?’

Megan shot him a startled glance and began to sneeze. ‘You know him?’ She felt another sneeze building and began to ransack her bag for tissues, she found the packet just in time.

‘We’re not members of the same club,’ she heard him drawling scornfully when her sneezes subsided. ‘And I don’t play golf…but they let us unskilled labourers into quite a few places these days.’

Megan gave her pink nose a last angry scrub, her china-blue eyes snapping with anger. Where did this man get off automatically assuming she was some sort of snob? There was only one person here guilty of judging by appearances and it wasn’t Megan!

‘In my book decorators aren’t unskilled, although…’ she allowed her gaze to travel significantly over his paint-stained person ‘…in your case…’

‘I’m helping out a friend.’

‘So what is your actual day job?’

‘I do a bit of this, a bit of that,’ he revealed casually.’

‘You don’t have a regular job?’ Megan’s voice lifted in amazement—like most of her friends, her life revolved around the demands of work.

Luc found the fact she was looking at him as though he were a rare specimen amusing. ‘I don’t starve and I don’t sponge.’

Megan was immediately embarrassed. ‘I never imagined that you…it really isn’t any of my business how you live your life, Mr…’

‘Not being tied down to a nine-to-five routine gives me time to write. Some of my work is even now sitting on your uncle’s desk.’

‘You want to be a writer?’ That would explain his instant recognition of her uncle’s name. Though he had to be incredibly naive if he thought the work of every unknown who sent in an unsolicited manuscript ended up on her uncle’s desk. You had to produce something very special indeed to get that far.

Much more likely his work was languishing at the bottom of a pile on some junior’s desk. Being a naturally kind person, Megan didn’t have the heart to explain the brutal facts of the publishing business to him.

‘Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be a writer?’

Her eyes swept over his tall, impressive figure. The truth was he exuded so much vitality and energy Megan couldn’t imagine him doing anything that required long periods of physical immobility.

Megan smiled sunnily and had the satisfaction of hearing his teeth grate. ‘Listen, I don’t know the first thing about publishing and I have no influence with my uncle but if you’re serious about writing I think it would probably be a good idea to find yourself an agent.’

‘Anybody you could recommend…?’

‘Afraid not.’

‘Maybe you should see a doctor,’ he observed with a grimace as she began to sneeze loudly again.

‘Look, I’m not in publishing, but good luck and don’t worry—’ Megan sniffed ‘—I’m not ill. I’m allergic to cats,’ she explained as she got to her feet.

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…?’ She nodded, and slung the soft leather satchel she carried over her shoulder and smoothed down her jacket.

The long, lean, intensely aggravating stranger didn’t step aside to let her pass. Instead he tilted his head back slightly to look curiously down at her and asked, ‘What kind of doctor are you?’

‘I’m a research chemist.’

‘Interesting,’ he said, looking and sounding as though he meant it.

‘It has its moments.’ Her bag hit her thigh as she hitched it on her shoulder and she winced as the fabric of her jeans rubbed against the fresh scratches on her leg.

‘You should put some antiseptic on that; cat scratches can get infected. If you like I’ve got some…’

An image of those long brown fingers moving over her skin flashed into Megan’s head. The reaction to the image was immediate and intense; the surface of her skin broke out in a rash of goose-bumps; her skin tingled; her sensitive stomach muscles contracted violently.

Her wide eyes lifted and collided with a steel-grey interrogative stare. There was a silence. The electric tension in the air had to be a product of her imagination, but it felt disturbingly real.

‘That won’t be necessary,’ she replied huskily. ‘But thanks for the offer.’

Adopting a brisk, decisive air, she stepped forward. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and hesitated when he didn’t move. There was room to edge past, but that would mean touching him. The desire to get away from this man’s disturbing presence was strong, but her reluctance to make physical contact was stronger. ‘I’m sorry to have held you up…’

‘So Lucas Patrick is a friend of yours…?’

‘Actually I’ve never met the man in my life,’ she admitted. ‘Now if—’

‘You’re a fan, then?’ he theorised, talking across her. ‘If you leave your address, perhaps he’ll send you an autograph.’

‘Do I look stupid enough to give a total stranger my address?’ she demanded.’

The dark, satanically slanted brows lifted, but Megan had no more intention of responding to the gesture than she did the quivery demands of her oversensitive tummy muscles.

‘And I don’t want his damned autograph,’ she grunted, blushing darkly.

‘Then you don’t like his books?’

‘I’ve read some of his earlier ones, I can see why he’s popular,’ she observed diplomatically.

‘But not with you?’ he suggested shrewdly.

‘I think he’s slightly overrated.’ Unfairly she vented her antagonism towards this man on the absent and talented author.

She expelled a silent breath of relief as he finally moved aside to let her pass. As she did so she lifted her head as a thought occurred to her. ‘Have you actually met Lucas Patrick?’

‘In passing.’

Megan’s eyes widened. He didn’t seem to appreciate this put him in a pretty unique category. ‘Really—! And how did he seem?’

‘Seem?’

‘What was he like?’

‘He seemed a pretty ordinary sort of guy to me,’ he divulged disappointingly.

‘Then is he…what does he look like?’ She shook her head. ‘No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me, leave me with my illusions—though if you happened to nod when I said balding, or paunchy, that wouldn’t be totally out of order, would it?’

‘I thought your uncle was his editor?’

‘He is, but Uncle Malcolm’s lips are sealed when it comes to Lucas Patrick,’ she admitted regretfully.

‘And you’re curious…?’

A grin of pure mischief spread across Megan’s face. ‘A girl always likes to know ahead of time what her future husband looks like.’

‘Future husband…?’

The look of horror etched on his dark, dramatically perfect face could not have been more heartfelt had she just announced her intention to marry him. Megan loosed a gurgle of laughter. ‘A joke,’ she placated.

‘He might not think so,’ the tall stranger observed as he scanned her amused face.

‘Then he has no sense of humour,’ Megan proclaimed.

‘You still haven’t said what brought you here…’

Halfway to the door, Megan turned back at the sound of his voice. Why not? the reckless voice in her head suggested. You’re never going to see the man again. Maybe there was something in that old maxim that it was easier to discuss things with a stranger.

‘My mother wants me to be happy.’ She began to experience a familiar tightness in her chest and she sat down cautiously on the arm of a chair.

‘And that’s a problem?’ Luc watched her fumble in her bag.

‘She believes no woman is complete without a man.’

‘And you don’t have one.’

Megan’s chin went up. ‘I don’t want one,’ she rebutted firmly. Her fingers closed over the inhaler she never went out without and she gave a sigh of relief. ‘At regular intervals she tries to set me up with someone she imagines…’

‘Is good breeding stock…’ came the straight-faced suggestion.

Megan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Will make me happy,’ she corrected and raised the inhaler to her mouth. The relief was almost immediate. ‘This is why I avoid cats,’ she said, anticipating his question.

‘You have asthma?’ he queried, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

‘A little,’ she admitted. She went to rise but a large hand fell on her shoulder, anchoring her to the spot. Her eyes slid from his brown fingers to his face.

‘Take a minute to get your breath,’ he suggested, actually it was more than a suggestion, it was a quiet command.

Normally Megan didn’t respond well to commands but on this occasion she found herself strangely willing to let it pass. His concern, even though unnecessary was oddly comforting.

‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’

She nodded; her throat felt oddly achy and constricted.

Without a further comment he left and returned with a glass of water. He stood there, arms folded across his chest while she drank. Megan was very conscious of his silent presence. He wasn’t the sort of man you could forget was there.

‘Thank you,’ she said politely, handing back the empty glass. Their fingers touched briefly during the exchange; the contact did uncomfortable things to Megan’s pulse.

‘Can I call anyone for you?’

‘Gracious, no!’ Very conscious of her warm cheeks, she forced a smile but didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Despite a matchmaking mother.’

The comment brought her head up. ‘I’ve tried everything to put her off,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Nothing works.’

Head tilted a little to one side, a frown deepening the line between his flyaway brows, he scanned her face. ‘What are you…thirty…?’

The almost-spot-on estimate disconcerted her; she had enough female vanity to feel peeved.

‘Sorry, have I touched a nerve?’

Megan glared at him. ‘No, you haven’t,’ she denied angrily. ‘I have no problem with being thirty…actually, almost thirty.’

‘Good for you,’ he interposed with silken gravity. ‘Don’t you think at almost thirty it’s time you told your mother to mind her own business?’

Megan coloured angrily. He made it sound so simple, but then it probably was, if you had no problem trampling all over the feelings of people you loved. ‘Oh, why didn’t I think of that? Of course, it might be because I don’t want to hurt my mother.’

His shoulders lifted in a disdainful shrug. ‘Well, if you don’t mind people running your life…?’

‘My mother doesn’t run my life!’ she flared.

‘No?’

Megan clenched her teeth. ‘No, she doesn’t. She has had a tough time the last few years,’ she informed him, swallowing past the emotional lump in her throat. ‘She isn’t some cold control freak, she is just a caring mum who wants to see her daughter happy and settled.’ She dragged a frustrated hand through her hair and gave a dejected sigh. ‘Unfortunately happy and settled for her equates with a man and marriage, which is why I had this idea…a sort of line-of-least-resistance thing.’

Luc watched as she gazed abstractedly into the distance, her smooth brow furrowed.

‘Least resistance…?’ he probed softly.

She nodded. ‘If I could get one of the prospective grooms to pretend to be smitten, Mum would be happy and leave me to get on with more important things.’

Luc’s deep-set eyes widened slightly as comprehension struck home. ‘And what do you consider important?’

‘My job.’

‘You can’t live and breathe your job.’

‘My work is very demanding; it leaves no time for relationships. ’

‘So you’re married to your career.’

She frowned; he made her sound freaky. ‘I’ve nothing against marriage, but I don’t think I’ll ever find a man who is willing to take what little I would have to give.’

‘You don’t have a very high opinion of men.’

‘I’m a pragmatist.’

‘You think you were being pragmatic when you came here to ask Lucas Patrick to…pretend to be smitten…?’

A mortified flush mounted Megan’s cheeks—when he said it, it sounded even more off the wall. ‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But that’s what you came here for?’

‘It’s not as crazy as it sounds.’

‘Did I say it was crazy? I’m just wondering…what was going to be in it for him?’

CHAPTER THREE

MEGAN frowned. ‘In it…?’

‘As in what would he get out of it?’ Luc looked into her bewildered face and laughed. ‘You thought he’d do it out of the goodness of his heart.’ His mobile lips lifted cynically at the corners. ‘You really never have met Lucas Patrick, have you?’

‘And unlike you I’d prefer not to bad-mouth him in his absence.’

For some reason her angry reproach caused him to laugh. It was a deep, warm, uninhibited sound that made Megan’s pulse rate quicken. ‘Just bad-mouth his books…?’

She wrenched her appreciative stare from the mesh of fine lines around his smiling grey eyes and frowned. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ she warned him.

The stern warning brought Luc’s attention to her lips; she was attempting to compress them into a thin, disapproving line. As he contemplated the soft, cushiony contours it took considerable self-discipline to prevent his thoughts diverting into a carnal direction.

‘And I’m sure Mr Patrick has survived worse than anything I might say about him. And actually,’ she added, ‘I happen to think that he’s quite a talented writer.’

‘But you were willing to overlook his dubious literary talent in the interests of a quiet life?’ he questioned.

The soft charge brought a guilty flush to her cheeks. She squared her shoulders and sighed. ‘All right, I admit it was a pretty daft idea, but as the man isn’t here it’s fairly academic, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe…’

‘There’s no maybe about it,’ she rebutted morosely.

‘Would I be right in assuming that nobody at this house party, including your mother, has ever met Lucas Patrick…?’

‘Well, no, since Uncle Mal won’t be coming I don’t suppose…but I don’t see what that has to do with anything, Mr…what is your name anyhow?’ The weirdness of discussing such personal things with a total stranger whose name she didn’t even know suddenly struck Megan forcibly.

A slow, wolfish grin split the nameless stranger’s lean, dark face, revealing a set of white even teeth and causing her stomach to flip. Not only had she lost all control over what came out of her mouth, she had lost control of her nervous system as well!

‘To cut down on confusion, perhaps it’s better if you just call me Lucas…?’ he suggested smoothly.

‘What…? Megan’s impatient expression vanished as her eyes snapped open to their fullest extent. God, he couldn’t be saying what she thought he was…could he…?

She scanned his face with suspicion. ‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I’m suggesting that you need a face to fit your fantasy lover.’ He adopted an expression of enquiry. ‘Is there anything wrong with this one?’ His fluid gesture indicated his own lean face.

Megan looked at the golden toned skin stretched across the perfect arrangement of strong angles and intriguing hollows and went perfectly pale.

‘You’re insane.’ Despite her attitude of total conviction, there was a small voice in her head that said it could just work…

‘I’m assuming you weren’t expecting Lucas Patrick to actually marry you…?’

‘Don’t be absurd,’ she breathed faintly. Like a hypnotised rabbit, she couldn’t take her eyes off his face. That voice in her head was getting louder.

‘Did you have a time factor in mind…?’ When she looked back at him blankly he spelt it out. ‘How long did you imagine this fake romance had to last? Six months or so?’

‘I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.’

His disturbing eyes glittering from beneath the sweep of long, curling ebony lashes, he slanted her a sardonic look.

‘Oh, I guess so,’ she conceded crossly. ‘If you’re suggesting anyone is going to believe you’re a famous author…’ She gave a forced laugh.

‘Nobody has the faintest idea what Lucas Patrick looks like.’

‘They may not know what he looks like—’ she deliberately trailed her eyes along the long, lean lines of his athletic frame; about midway she lost her scornful air ‘—but I think they might know what he doesn’t look like,’ she finished hoarsely.

His self-satisfied air intensified as he surveyed her heated cheeks. ‘If I had claimed to be him when you walked in you’d have been none the wiser.’

‘Nonsense! Of course I would,’ she instantly rebutted indignantly. ‘What do you take me for?’

A look she couldn’t quite decipher flickered at the back of his steely, dark-lashed eyes. ‘Someone who thinks they can tell, just by looking at a person, who he is…or should I say what he does? The two seem to be the same thing as far as you’re concerned.’

‘Of course I can’t.’

‘And neither can anyone else. The fact is you assumed I was the hired help because of the way I’m dressed. If I came out of the bedroom with a stethoscope around my neck you’d have assumed I was a doctor. It’s all about props.’

‘This is all academic…I’m not going to invite a total stranger into my home.’

‘Afraid I’ll steal the silver?’

She shook her head and refused to respond to this taunt. ‘This isn’t going to happen. Even if you did carry it off…’

‘I will,’ he promised.

His smug smile made her frown. ‘Even if you did my mother is never going to believe I’m attracted to you.’ Then she would be wrong wouldn’t she?

‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘You’re simply not my type.’

‘What is your type?’

‘Shall we drop this subject?’

‘Because you find it uncomfortable?’ The idea seemed to amuse him.

‘I find you uncomfortable.’ Too much information, Megan, she told herself not liking the thoughtful expression on his face. Recalling his earlier cynical comments, she asked, ‘What do you get out of it?’

He smiled. ‘Your uncle Malcolm looks at my manuscript.’

So that was it. ‘If you’ve written a load of rubbish, nothing I say is going to make Uncle Malcolm publish you.’

‘It isn’t rubbish; it’s good.’

‘You’re very confident.’

He didn’t deny her accusation. ‘I just need a break and you need a lover.’

‘A fake lover.’

‘I’m applying for the job…?’

Megan clutched her head and groaned. ‘I must be mad!’

‘You won’t regret this,’ he promised, extending his hand.

Megan, who was pretty sure she would regret it, allowed her fingers to be enclosed in his firm grip. A shot of heat zapped through her body.

She was regretting it already. She carried on regretting it and questioning her sanity during the next twenty-four hours. In the end it didn’t matter.

Her fake lover was a no-show.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE day was grey and drizzly, there had been no buyers for a brisk walk, so Megan hadn’t had company when she’d walked the dogs. She was still in her muddy shoes and outdoor clothes when a noisy Land Rover drew up onto the gravelled forecourt right beside a Porsche and a Mercedes. She stopped towelling the muddy terrier and got to her feet, her heart pounding—please let it not be him…!

‘I wonder who that is?’ her mother asked with a frown. ‘I do wish you’d fetch the dogs in through the kitchen when we’ve got guests,’ she remonstrated gently. ‘Hilary will have hysterics if they go within ten yards of her…tiresome woman,’ she added to herself. ‘Down, Fred,’ she added sternly to the large dog who had planted his damp paws on her stomach.

‘I can’t imagine who it is,’ Megan replied, her heart thumping madly in her chest.

Her mother looked at her sharply. ‘Are you feeling all right, Megan?’ She considered her daughter’s face with a frown. ‘You look a little flushed.’

‘Me? I’m fine, absolutely fine!’ The cheerful smile she pinned on her face felt as though it was about to crack…or was that her face? ‘I’ll go and see who it is, shall I?’ she added brightly.

‘Would you, dear?’

Megan was already running across towards the vehicle, her boots crunching on the gravel. Seconds later she arrived breathless and quivering with tension.

‘You’re late!’ she fired as the tall figure stepped with lithe, fluid ease from the disreputable-looking four-wheel drive. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’ If she was honest she had been relieved when she had thought he wasn’t honouring their bargain.

‘Something came up,’ he revealed casually.

‘And it didn’t occur to you to let me know,’ she quivered accusingly.

One dark brow angled sardonically. ‘Don’t you think you should wait until we are irresistibly attracted before you get possessive…?’ he suggested mildly.

The sarcasm brought an angry sparkle to her eyes. ‘This might be a joke to you, but—’

‘Not a joke,’ he interposed. ‘But I don’t see any reason we can’t make the best of it. We might even enjoy ourselves…’

‘Enjoy? Are you insane?’ Then, transferring her attention to the off-roader, she continued without missing a beat. ‘Is that yours?’

If I had an ounce of foresight, she thought, I would have considered the question of transport and hired him the sort of car people would expect a best-selling author to drive around in. If I had any foresight I wouldn’t have done this at all.

‘No, I stole it on the way here,’ he returned, straight-faced. His dark eyes moved from the tendrils of hair that curled damply around her fair skinned face to her wide, anxious eyes. ‘Is that a problem?’

Megan tore her attention from the Land Rover and cast him a look of seething dislike…as she did so she immediately realised that nobody would notice if he rolled up riding a child’s tricycle!

‘Oh, my God…’ she groaned, grabbing agitated handfuls of damp hair. ‘Look at you!’

She followed her own instructions and allowed her glance to travel down the long, lean length of him once more. It was a cue for a heat flash to consume her all over again.

He was sheathed from head to toe in black. The leather, age-softened jacket he wore was moulded to truly fantastic shoulders. It hung open to reveal a plain white tee shirt that clung to his powerful chest and lean, washboard belly. His dark moleskins followed the muscular contours of long, powerful thighs. God, was that a hole in the knee…? She despaired that a tiny glimpse of flesh could make her break out in a sweat.

This was never going to work.

‘What’s wrong with me?’

Nothing, if you liked being hit over the head with sex appeal.

‘Everything!’ she snapped in a doom-laden drone.

His mobile mouth quirked at the corners; he didn’t appear particularly chastened by her pronouncement. ‘Harsh.’

‘You might have made an effort to look less…’ Sexy. Her eyes slid from his as she added huskily, ‘More…like a writer. And you could have shaved; you look like you haven’t been to bed.’

He lifted a hand to the strong curve of his jaw covered with a layer of dark stubble and grinned. ‘I haven’t.’ He had had an idea for his next book; when inspiration struck, he listened. He had worked through the night to get it down on paper.

‘Spare me the details of your conquests,’ she begged.

‘Relax, nobody knows what this particular writer looks like.’ Persuasive as his argument was, it didn’t stop her feeling as though she had made a terrible mistake. ‘And isn’t this the way they want your writer to look…?’

‘Want? That’s the problem—nobody actually really believes he looks like a Byronic hero. You look too good to be true—they’ll smell a rat.’ But he wasn’t true, was he? He was a fake. He was also quite simply the most impossibly good-looking male she had ever seen.

‘Why, thank you.’

‘Look, if you’re not going to take this seriously drive away now,’ she instructed. This was almost certainly going to go wrong. ‘No,’ she added urgently. ‘Drive away anyway. This was a very bad idea.’

‘Chill out,’ he drawled, looking infuriatingly laid-back.

The suggestion made her see red. ‘Chill out? Chill out!’ she repeated in a shrill squeak. ‘Easy for you to say. If this goes wrong people aren’t going to think you’re the desperate sort of woman who has to resort to hire a lover!’ she declared with a groan of self-recrimination.

He scanned her anguished face, with deep-set eyes that revealed none of his feelings. ‘Presumably they’ll just think I’m a gigolo,’ he cut back. ‘Actually I wasn’t aware that sleeping with you was part of the deal, but what the hell?’ His sensual mouth formed a wide smile that didn’t touch his eyes. ‘I’ll throw that in for free.’

There was a lengthy silence while Megan cleared her head of disturbing images and sounds: A darkened room, soft groans, intimate murmurs, two sweat-soaked bodies intimately entwined…She tugged fretfully at the neck of her sweater as she fought for breath. Inch by inch she fought her way back to control…or something that passed for it.

‘God, don’t go sensitive on me,’ she begged, still haunted by the humiliating memory of the suffocating white-hot excitement she had felt when she had imagined—She caught her breath sharply. Don’t go there, Megan, she told herself sternly.

‘You know I wasn’t speaking literally,’ she contended calmly, meeting his eyes. ‘I’ve simply realised I can’t go through with it. Late in the day, I know, but don’t worry—I’ll still have a word with Uncle Malcolm. He’ll look at your manuscript, I promise.’

Megan heard the crunch of gravel behind her and looked over her shoulder. Her mother was advancing towards them. When her attention flickered back to her co-conspirator he was shaking his head.

‘I don’t want charity. I’m perfectly prepared to fulfil my side of the bargain.’

Megan looked at him with frustrated incomprehension.

His body curved towards her. ‘Smile, sweetheart, and try and remember you’ve just found the man of your dreams.’

‘Nightmares, more like.’

He laughed and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. It was so light it barely constituted a brush but Megan experienced an electrical thrill that travelled all the way to her toes. She stepped backwards, her nostrils flared as she tried not to breathe in the warm male fragrance that made her stomach flip. ‘Well, I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of it.’

‘Is this a friend of yours, Megan?’

Megan, her hands held up in front of her, backed farther away from the tall, handsome figure who was the object of her mother’s obvious appreciation.

‘No—whatever gave you that idea?’ The sharpness of her tone brought her mother’s frowning attention to her own face. ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life.’

He spared her a sideways look of amusement as he advanced towards her mother with his hand outstretched. ‘You can know some people for years and never really know them, others you can know seconds and there’s a rapport—’ He broke off and gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘Does that sound crazy?’

Megan was staggered to see her mother looking as though he’d just said something profound instead of something profoundly silly.

‘Not at all, I know exactly what you mean!’ Laura exclaimed.

‘I think it’s dangerous to go on first impressions,’ Megan inserted drily.

‘You’re not a romantic?’

‘My daughter is a cynic, Mr…’

‘I’m Lucas Patrick.’

Megan drew a deep breath and squared her slender shoulders. Well, that was it! With those words he had committed them both for better or worse…she suspected the latter.

Laura took an audible deep breath and pressed her hand to her mouth. Megan felt a fresh spasm of guilt to see her mother’s childlike delight.

‘Of course you are.’ She laughed. ‘Why, this is marvellous.’ A faint furrow appeared between her delicately arched brows. ‘My brother told me you had flu…’

‘Mal’s prone to exaggeration, but then you’d know that.’ Laura nodded happily. ‘I had a head cold, that was all.’ He looked around expectantly. ‘Where is Mal?’

‘Didn’t he mention he couldn’t make it?’

‘No, that’s a pity.’

Megan, who was amazed at how he had immersed himself in the part he was playing, watched with unwilling fascination as a troubled expression of suspicion spread across his handsome features.

‘He did…you were expecting me…?’ he pressed.

‘Of course we were,’ Laura the perfect hostess responded without skipping a beat. ‘We just weren’t sure when you’d be here, were we, darling?’

‘No, we weren’t.’ Megan glanced at her watch, how many hours of this did she have to endure? The irony was this was a situation of her own making.

‘So long as I’m not imposing.’

‘Gracious, not at all. Actually we’ve been thrilled at the prospect of having you stay. Haven’t we, darling?’

‘Thrilled,’ said Megan obediently.

‘Megan has read all your books, haven’t you?’

In full charm mode, his eyes crinkled delightfully at the corners, he turned his attention briefly to a squirming Megan. ‘I think you’ve embarrassed…’ he gave a quizzical look of apology ‘…Meg…?’

‘Megan.’

The lack of animation in her response earned her a reproachful glare from her mother. God, he seemed to be enjoying himself…! If he wasn’t a con man he’d missed his calling, she decided grimly. A man like that could convince a girl of almost anything, especially if she wanted to believe it! This was something worth keeping in mind the next time her hormones went haywire, she told herself.

‘Megan will show you to your room, won’t you, darling?’

‘Thank you, Megan.’

‘My pleasure,’ she replied with equal insincerity.

‘Please call me Luc,’ he invited them.

‘I have a French friend called, Luc,’ Laura commented.

‘My grandfather on my mother’s side was French.’

‘I knew there was something Gallic about you the moment I saw you…French men have such style,’ Laura observed. ‘Is your mother alive, Luc?’

‘No, she died when I was nine. She named me after her own father, my grandfather.’

Behind her mother Megan shook her head and telegraphed a warning with her eyes. Her fake lover smiled back enigmatically.

‘Do you speak French, Luc? I’ll get someone to bring your luggage in…’

‘No need, I travel light,’ he said, extracting a rucksack from the back seat of the Land Rover.

‘How refreshing,’ Laura said, as though she were used to guests turning up carrying a rucksack that looked as if it was about to disintegrate. ‘Show Luc up to the red room, Megan, then bring him down for tea…Then you can meet the other guests. Megan shot Lucas a questioning look.

‘A quick shower and I’m all yours,’ he promised.

Ignoring her mother’s hissed instruction to, for God’s sake, smile, he’s gorgeous, she stalked towards the house with a face like thunder. She kept a tight-lipped silence until they reached the kitchen. Reaching the door that led to the back staircase, she turned and found that he was no longer at her shoulder but standing some yards away looking around the vast room.

‘There really are an amazing number of original features intact,’ he observed, opening the door of an original bread oven set in an alcove of the cavernous inglenook.

‘Save it for my mother,’ Megan, in no mood to discuss the architectural merits of her home, snapped. ‘Did you have to lay it on with a trowel?’ she demanded. ‘Why on earth did you say you spoke French?’

‘I didn’t say I did.’

‘You implied.’

‘I do speak French.’

‘Oh! And what was all that stuff about a French grandfather…?’

‘My grandfather was French.’

Which was probably where he had inherited his dark Mediterranean colouring. ‘You’re not meant to be you, you’re meant to be Lucas Patrick.’

‘I am Lucas Patrick,’ he contradicted.

Megan sighed. ‘There’s such a thing as overconfidence. Let’s just hope the real Lucas Patrick isn’t a litigious man.’

‘You’re an awful worrier, aren’t you? Do you always assume the worst?’

‘I only worry when there’s something to worry about.’ She scanned his dark face resentfully—he wasn’t meant to be enjoying this. ‘Aren’t you even slightly nervous?’

‘Not especially.’

‘Well, you should be. From now on say as little as possible and follow my lead. Do you understand?’ she asked him sternly. It was about time, she decided, to remind him just who was in control here. Her lips curved in a self-derisive smile; had she ever felt less in control in her life?

‘Perhaps if you could write it down for me?’

‘Very funny.’ She sniffed. ‘Come on, I suppose I’d better show you to your room. We’ll take the back stairs.’

‘Anyone would think you were ashamed of me,’ he reproached.

Megan dished up a repressive glare but wasn’t surprised when he didn’t look unduly subdued. ‘There are six other people staying other than you. There’s…’

When they reached the room her mother had allocated to him, she decided not to mention it was next to her own and that all the other guests were in a different wing entirely—she asked him to repeat the names of his fellow guests.

He ran his fingers across some carving in an ancient beam above the low doorway. ‘Is this a test?’

‘Were you actually listening to me?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘I was listening; your voice is like honey.’

Megan, her hand on the door handle, stilled. She was certain she had misheard what he had said. ‘Pardon…?’

‘You have a beautiful voice. It flows…’ His hands moved in an expressive fluid gesture before he sighed. ‘I could listen to it all day…’ Her voice was part of the reason he was here. Her voice—his eyes dropped—her legs and, yes, her mouth.

‘Will you stop that? It isn’t funny,’ she croaked crossly.

His glance moved upwards to the full soft pink contours of her lips. Yes, they had all been factors—they and the fact he thought that the sexy and stuck-up Dr Semple needed to be taught a lesson. You really shouldn’t judge by appearances.

‘Of course what you actually say isn’t always riveting,’ he conceded in an attitude of regret as he ducked to enter the bedroom. He looked around with interest.

‘Not bad!’ He walked over to the canopied half tester and patted the mattress. ‘Firm, but I like that.’

Megan responded to the fact he was looking at her body and not the bed when he said this with an irritated air. Actually she would have welcomed some irritation at that moment, if he said the things his seductive eyes managed to convey he could probably be arrested.

He fell back onto the bed and, crossing one leg over the other, tucked his hands behind his head so that he could look at her. ‘Where’s your room?’

‘Next door,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘Handy.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘The moment you begin to believe that, you’re out of here.’

To her intense annoyance he seemed to find her threat wildly amusing. Maybe, she thought darkly, it was the idea of any woman saying no to him that struck him as funny…?

‘My mother is a firm believer in propinquity. I am not,’ she told him drily. ‘Perhaps we should lay down a few ground rules.’

‘I should tell you I’m not big on rules,’ he confided, stifling a yawn.

‘Now there’s a surprise.’

‘In fact,’ he admitted. ‘I see a rule and I feel this almost overwhelming desire to bend it a little,’ he returned, stretching with languid grace.

Megan felt her stomach muscles clench and looked at him in frustration. Without trying he could drive her crazy. What was going to happen if he took it into his head to try? It didn’t bear thinking about.

Her expression fixed she braced her hand on the back of a chair covered in faded tapestry. One day she might be able to work out why she had ever thought this was a good idea. Right now that day seemed awfully far off.

‘Why am I getting the idea you’re not taking this seriously…?’

‘I get the idea you take everything much too seriously,’ he retorted, looking at her curiously. ‘What do you do when you’re not looking down a microscope?’

‘I avoid men like you.’ Actually she had never met a man like him. Were there any other men like him…?

‘Have you seen the ghost?’

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘How do you know we have a ghost?’ she wanted to know.

‘Don’t all old places like this have a ghost…or several…?’

‘I suppose they do,’ she admitted. ‘But I’ve never seen one.’ And frankly a ghost would scare her less than this incredibly sexy man did. ‘Now, seriously, we should lay down some ground rules.’

His head went back, revealing his strong brown throat as he laughed. Oh, God, she thought, he really is just too attractive, in a dangerous what-the-hell-is-he-going-to-do-next sort of way.

‘Right, forget the rules, just keep it simple. If in doubt say nothing; better still, let me do all the talking.’

‘Won’t that make me appear as if I don’t have an opinion of my own?’

‘That’s the way I like my men.’

‘Under your thumb.’ He extended his aforementioned digit towards her.

He had nice hands, she noticed, but then he had nice everything. ‘I like the strong, silent type…’ she crisply corrected. ‘If in doubt just look enigmatic,’ she advised. Her frown deepened as she scanned his face. ‘Do you think you could do that?’

‘I could.’

‘But are you going to do?’ Or was he going to make a total fool out of her?

‘Is this suitably enigmatic…?’

‘You’re a natural,’ she assured him drily. This was all going to go terribly wrong.

‘Relax,’ he advised. ‘This is going to be fun.’

‘If you think this is fun you have a seriously warped mind. Now just try and remember,’ she pleaded, ‘you’re a famous author.’

‘I’m a famous author,’ he repeated solemnly. ‘Do you believe me?’

‘I know you’re not…I don’t count.’

‘Believe me, by the end of tonight I’ll be so good even you will believe I’m a famous author.’

‘Let’s not get too ambitious.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to get changed for dinner.’ She extended one denim-covered leg to prove the point. ‘I’ll come back for you in half an hour. Don’t,’ she added, wagging a warning finger at him, ‘move until I get here.’

Of course he did.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE French doors had been open all through dinner and the guests had drifted out onto the terrace to sip their drinks and chat. Despite the unpromising start the day had produced a perfect summer evening, warm and balmy, spoilt only by an unexpected shower, which was brief but heavy.

Luc and Megan were caught out in the open when the heavens opened. By the time they reached the shelter offered by the leafy canopy of the ancient oak tree it had stopped raining.

Luc, grinning, shook his head, sending droplets of water everywhere. ‘There’s something exhilarating about a summer shower.’

Easy for him to say, she thought.

Casting a resentful glance from under her lashes at Luc’s classically perfect profile, she pondered the unfairness that made him look incredible with his hair plastered damply to his skull. The moisture that clung to his naturally dark skin only served to emphasise the healthy glow.

She had gone for a vintage look tonight. With a sigh she looked down with distaste at her silk calf-length skirt; it clung damply to her legs. The chiffon overskirt with its beading detail might well be ruined—pity, it had been her favourite. She could feel the excess moisture from her wet hair running in a cold trickle down her neck, she didn’t even want to think about what it looked like.

Luc, his back set against the gnarled tree trunk, watched as she ran her hands down her bare arms to remove the excess moisture that clung to her pale smooth skin. She had great arms; like the rest of her body they were toned and firm.

At least the cotton halter-top wouldn’t be ruined by the rain, Megan thought, concentrating on the positive. Which was more than could be said for her hair…negative thoughts refused to be totally banished.

‘Have you ever danced?’

A line forming between her feathery brows, Megan lifted her head to look at the tall figure standing in the shadows. ‘Dance? What on earth are you talking about?’ She glared up at him, bristling with suspicion.

Luc registered the antagonistic glitter in her eyes, but didn’t comment on it. ‘You’re very graceful.’

Megan felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I was simply making an observation. You carry yourself like a dancer. I was wondering if you trained at some point…?’

‘Me, a dancer!’ She looked at him as though he had gone mad. ‘I’m a research scientist.’

‘Does being a boffin preclude you having a sense of rhythm?’

She dealt him a look of exasperation. ‘I don’t dance. I…well, I did have a few lessons when I was a kid,’ she conceded. ‘Singing lessons too. They were meant to help my asthma.’

‘Did they?’

‘Well, it got a lot better.’

‘You’re shivering,’ he observed as a fresh shudder ran visibly through her slender frame. ‘I’d offer you a jacket except…’ his grin made him appear almost impossibly attractive ‘…I’m not wearing one.’

Megan watched him place his hand flat against his chest. A shaft of agonising awareness shot through her—she was conscious of every crease and fold of the white cotton that clung like a second skin to the broad expanse of his chest. She was even more painfully conscious of the shadow of body hair sprinkled over his broad chest and the suggestion of muscular definition.

Drawing a deep breath as she struggled to regain her composure, Megan developed a deep interest in his shoes.

‘You can have my shirt if you like.’

Her stomach flipped over at the thought of wearing something that was still warm from his skin, something that still bore the scent of his body.

An awful thought occurred to her. Did he know that she had just been mentally removing it? Had she been that obvious?

‘I don’t like.’ It wasn’t just cold that made her teeth chatter violently, it was images of Luc standing there stripped to the waist, his golden skin gleaming his…Stop this, Megan! This was not the time or place to explore her darker emotions!

‘Do you want to go back to the house?’ she asked him abruptly.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ Luc enquired, scanning her rigid face.

After his performance tonight Megan couldn’t believe he had the cheek to ask. Of course she had known when she had gone back to his room and found it empty that she had made a terrible mistake. When she had come downstairs and found him surrounded by a laughing, admiring crowd who were hanging on his every word all her worst fears had been realised.

‘Nothing’s wrong with me.’ She sniffed.

‘I thought tonight went very well.’

Megan released a laugh of bitter incredulity at this self-congratulatory comment. ‘I noticed you were enjoying yourself.’

It would have been hard to miss it!

And to think she had been concerned that he might find himself a little out of his depth during dinner. The gathering had been typical of her mother’s weekends. A diplomat, a poet and his lawyer wife, an actress…least said about the voluptuous Hilary, the better! A retired headmaster, and someone who had written a number one rock ballad, then entered politics.

Far from being out of his depth, her fake lover had been totally at ease. His ability to converse on a wide range of subjects with authority and ease had astounded her and impressed the hell out of everyone else.

Of course she had already known that he was intelligent. Two seconds in his company revealed that. Now she knew that, though he might have no formal education to speak of, he was widely read and amazingly erudite with a sharp wit and deadly charm. Her lips pursed; the recollection of his deadly charm reminded her of how angry she was.

‘Come on, let’s walk in the sun. It might warm you up.’

‘I’m not cold,’ she denied, wrapping her arms around her trembling body.

‘Well, I am.’

After a short pause she followed him back out into the evening sun.

‘Are you going to tell me what I’ve done to make you mad?’

‘You need to ask?’

‘I just did.’

‘It might have slipped your memory that the reason—the only reason you are here is to establish that you find me irresistible. It might be a start if you had deigned to notice I was alive,’ she ground out grimly.

Until he had asked her to take this stroll outside he had acted as though she were invisible. If she hadn’t wanted to get him alone long enough to give him a piece of her mind, she’d have told him where he could stick his stroll!

His dark shapely brows moved towards his equally dark and at that moment damp hairline. ‘I haven’t forgotten why I’m here.’

Megan’s lips tightened. His dismissive attitude really got under her skin. ‘So ignoring me and spending the entire evening talking to someone else’s cleavage is your idea of seeming interested? Interesting technique,’ she admired with heavy sarcasm.

The memory of his humiliating fascination with the actress’s breasts increased the angry tightness in her aching throat. She’d probably hear that woman’s awful laugh in her sleep tonight, she decided, thinking of the shrill, jarring sound. Why was it that every single time men went for obvious…?

Not, of course, that she gave a damn if he fancied the redhead—after all, that hardly placed him in a unique category. Hilary was the sort of woman who demanded and got male attention. No, Megan’s legitimate grouch was the fact he wasn’t fulfilling his end of the bargain. Her acting as an introduction agent for him, a fact she had every intention of pointing out, was not part of the deal.

For a moment her angry eyes met his before her lashes swept downwards and she turned and backed away.

‘Calm down, chérie’ He laughed, catching her arm and swinging her back.

Her shrill, ‘I am calm!’ made him laugh again.

‘Not so as you’d notice.’ The first time he’d seen her he’d wondered what she would look like without her upper-crust reserve intact and he had had ample opportunity to find out today. ‘Unreasonable and ratty is actually not a bad look for you.’

Something in his voice brought Megan’s eyes back to his face. ‘I am neither unreasonable nor ratty!’ She regarded him with simmering dislike. ‘I just don’t like wasting my time,’ she enunciated clearly.

‘I haven’t been wasting anything.’

His patronising tone made her teeth clench. ‘Certainly no opportunity to chat up anything in a low-cut top.’ And if he thought that cleavage was natural he was in for a nasty shock.

‘What we’ve established tonight is that you mind me showing an interest in another woman.’

His smugness made Megan want to scream.

‘Your reaction was perfect,’ he commended calmly.

‘I didn’t react,’ she told him frigidly. Actually, now that she reviewed her behaviour during the interminable dinner, she had to concede that maybe her conduct hadn’t been quite as adult as it might have been, but, in her defence, she had had a lot of provocation.

‘God, and to think I thought you had no sense of humour. Everyone there was aware of the friction.’

Megan inhaled deeply. ‘Friction…?’ she parroted.

Her cheeks turned a deeper pink as she looked significantly at the long brown fingers still curled over her bare upper arm. The fingers stayed where they were. God, but he had to be the most insensitive, thick-skinned man she had ever had the misfortune to encounter! The idea of respecting personal space was obviously a foreign concept to him.

Megan decided to bravely rise above it all. Rather than participate in an unseemly struggle, she forced herself to stand there passively even though his fingers felt like a white-hot brand against her skin.

‘You would have said black if I had said white. In fact I’m not sure you didn’t!’ he added wryly. ‘But don’t worry—like I said, that’s no problem. We’re going to have a turbulent relationship—a classic case of opposites attracting. I predict a lot of really epic rows in public and some epic making up too.’

‘If you try to make up with me you’ll end up in traction,’ she promised. ‘And actually opposites don’t attract, they end up making each other miserable. And just for the record,’ she added grimly, ‘I realise that you think you’re God’s gift, but, trust me—the only thing I minded tonight was not being given value for money.’

‘Well, let me remind you, chérie, that you haven’t bought me.’ His narrowed gaze suddenly turned molten silver as he scanned her angry upturned features. ‘You’re giving me something I want and I’m giving you something you want…or I could if you let me.’

The suggestive drawl in his deep, musical voice sent a surge of heat through Megan’s rigid frame.

‘That remains to be seen,’ she gulped. Unable to bear the contact for another moment without crawling clear out of her skin, she tugged her arm free of his clasp. ‘And don’t keep calling me chérie! I am not your darling and I have a name,’ she said, standing there rubbing the invisible imprint of his fingers on her flesh.