Kitabı oku: «Billionaire's Wife On Paper»

CHAPTER ONE

LAYLA CAMPBELL WAS placing dust sheets on the furniture in the now deserted northern wing of Bellbrae Castle when she heard the sound of a firm footfall on the stairs. Goosebumps peppered her skin like Braille and a cold draught of air circled her ankles like the ghost of a long-dead cat.

No such things as ghosts. No such things as ghosts.

Her old childhood chant wasn’t working any better than when she had first come to live in the Scottish Highlands castle as a frightened and lonely twelve-year-old orphan. Taken in by her great-aunt, who had worked as housekeeper for the super-wealthy aristocratic McLaughlin family, Layla had been raised in the kitchen and corridors of the castle. In the early days, downstairs had been her only domain, upstairs out of bounds. And not just because of her limp. Upstairs had been another world—a world in which she did not and could not ever belong.

‘Is anyone th-there?’ Her voice echoed in the silence, her heart thumping so loudly she could hear it booming in her ears. Who would be coming up to the north tower at this time of day? Logan, the new heir to the estate, was working abroad in Italy, and last time Layla had heard, Logan’s younger brother Robbie was doing a casino crawl in the US. Fear crept up her spine with ice-cube-clad feet, her breathing coming to a halt when a tall figure materialised out of the shadows.

‘Layla?’ Logan McLaughlin said, with a heavy frown. ‘What are you doing up here?’

Layla clasped her hand against her pounding chest, sure her heart was going to punch its way out of her body and land at his Italian-leather-covered feet. ‘You didn’t half give me a fright. Aunt Elsie told me you wouldn’t be back until November. Aren’t you supposed to be working in Tuscany this month?’

She hadn’t seen him since his grandfather’s funeral in September. And she figured he hadn’t seen her even then. Layla had tried to offer her condolences a couple of times before and after his grandfather’s service and at the wake, but she’d been busy helping her great-aunt with the catering and Logan had left before she could get a chance to speak to him in private.

But the upstairs-downstairs thing had always coloured her relationship with the McLaughlins. Logan and his brother and grandfather were landed gentry, privileged from birth, coming from a long line of aristocratic ancestors. Layla’s great-aunt and her, by default, were downstairs. The staff who were meant to stay in the background and go about their work with quiet dedication, not share intimate chit-chats with their employers.

Layla could never quite forget she was the interloper, the charity case—only living there out of Logan’s grandfather’s pity for a homeless orphan. It made her keep a prickly and prideful rather than polite distance.

Logan scraped a hand through his hair as if his scalp was feeling too tight for his head. ‘I postponed my trip. I have some business to see to here first.’ His dark blue gaze swept over the dust-sheeted furniture, the crease in his forehead deepening. ‘Why are you doing this? I thought Robbie was going to hire someone to see to it?’

Layla turned to pick up one of the folded dust sheets, flapping it open and then laying it over a mahogany table with cabriole legs. Hundreds of disturbed dust motes rose in the air in a galaxy of activity. ‘He did see to it—by hiring me. Not that I want to be paid or anything.’ She leaned down to tuck the edge of the dust sheet closer around the legs of the table and flicked him a glance. ‘You do realise this is my job now? Cleaning, sorting, organising. I have a small team of people working for me and all. Didn’t your grandfather tell you? He gave me a loan to get my business started.’

One brow came up in a perfect arc. ‘A loan?’ There was a note of surprise—or was it cynicism?—in his tone.

Layla pursed her lips and planted her hands on her hips like she was channelling a starchy nineteenth-century governess. ‘A loan I paid back, with interest.’ What did he think she was? An elder abuser? Exploiting an old man dying of cancer with requests for money she had no intention of paying back? She might share the genes of people like that but she didn’t share their morals. ‘I wouldn’t have agreed to the loan otherwise.’

His navy-blue eyes narrowed. ‘Seriously? He offered you a loan?’

Layla moved past him to pack up her cleaning basket. ‘For your information, I have never taken your grandfather’s largesse for granted.’

Feather duster. Tick. Soft polishing cloths. Tick.

‘He allowed me to live here with my great-aunt rent-free and for that I will be grateful for ever.’

She shoved the furniture polish bottle in amongst the other cleaning products in her basket. She had become closer to the old man in his last months of life, coming to understand the gruff exterior of a proud man who had done his best to keep his family together after repeated tragedy.

Logan let out a long breath, still frowning like he didn’t know any other way to look at her. Story of her life. One look at her scarred leg and her limp and that’s what most people did—frowned. Or asked intrusive questions she refused on principle to answer. Layla never talked about what had happened to her leg, not in any detail that is. ‘A car crash’ was her stripped-down answer. She never said who was driving or why they were driving the way they were, or who else had been injured or killed.

Who wanted to be reminded of the day that had changed her life for ever?

‘Why didn’t he just give you the money?’ Logan asked.

Layla’s old friend pride steeled her gaze and tightened her mouth. ‘Oh, you mean because he felt sorry for me?’

Logan’s covert glance at her left leg told her all she needed to know. Just like everyone else, he saw her damaged leg first and her later—if at all. Layla was fiercely proud of how she had made something of herself in spite of impossible odds. She didn’t want to be seen as the orphaned girl with the limp, but the gutsy woman with gumption, drive, ambition and resourcefulness.

‘No.’ His tone was weighted. ‘Because he was a wealthy man and you’re practically family.’ He moved away to look at some of the boxes she’d packed earlier. He peeled back the cardboard flaps of one box and took out a leather-bound book, fanning through the pages, his features set in lines of deep thought.

Practically family? Was that how he saw her? As a surrogate sister or distant cousin? At six feet four with a lean and rangy build, dark brown loosely styled wavy hair, a chiselled Lord Byron jaw and deep blue eyes the colour of a Highland tarn, it would be a crying waste if Logan McLaughlin were her brother or cousin.

It was a crying waste to women the world over that he hadn’t dated since the tragic death of his fiancée Susannah.

Not that he would ever date Layla. No one had ever dated her…well, not since she was a teenager. And she deliberately tried not to think of that one and only date and the excruciating embarrassment it had entailed. From that day on, she had decided her career plans would always be more important. More important than trying to go to parties or nightclubs in short dresses and heels that drew even more attention to her leg. More important than being told by a guy she wasn’t good enough. Could never be good enough.

Logan closed the book with a little snap and placed it back on top of the others. He turned to look at her.

Yep, with a frown.

‘Where will you and your aunt go if this place is sold?’

Layla’s eyes widened and her chest developed a tight, can’t-take-another-breath ache. ‘Sold? You’re selling Bellbrae?’ She could think of no bigger tragedy…well, she could because she’d lived through one big hell of a tragedy, but still. Selling Bellbrae was way up there on the list. Who would she be without the shelter of Bellbrae watching over her? Her identity had been formed here, her sense of security and safety honed within the fortress-like walls of the centuries-old castle. ‘How could you do that, Logan? Your grandfather left it to you as his eldest male heir. Your dad is buried here along with your grandparents and generations of ancestors. You surely don’t need to sell it for the money?’

His expression went as blank as one of the dust sheets on the furniture, but his tone was jaded. ‘It’s not about money. I am unwilling to fulfil the terms of my grandfather’s will.’

Layla frowned like she was in competition with him for Best Frown in Show. ‘Terms? What terms?’

He stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets and moved to look out of one of the mullioned windows, his back turned to her. Layla could see the tension in his shoulders even through his clothes. The breadth of his shoulders had always secretly fascinated her.

She had often seen him rowing and swimming in summer on the lake on the Bellbrae estate when he’d come home to visit. Tall and lean-hipped with abdomen muscles ridged with strength and endurance, she had been fascinated by his athleticism as it had been in such stark contrast to her young broken body. And when he’d brought Susannah home for visits, Layla had watched them both. Susannah had been supermodel stunning, slim and glamourous. Never had Layla seen two people more perfect for each other or more devotedly in love. It had set a benchmark for her to aspire to. An impossible benchmark perhaps, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

Logan turned to look at her, his jaw set in a taut line. ‘Unless I marry within three months, the entire estate will pass to Robbie.’

Layla licked her carpet-dry lips, her heart suddenly flapping like a loose window shutter in a stiff Highland breeze. ‘Oh…’

He drew in a breath and released it in a gust of frustration. ‘Yes. Oh. And we both know what he will do when he gets his hands on this place.’

Layla couldn’t allow her mind to even go there. No two brothers could ever be more disparate. Logan was the strong, silent type—hard-working and responsible. Robbie was a loud party boy with a streak of recklessness who had already brought shame on the family too many times to count. ‘You think he’d sell it?’

He gave a grim movement of his lips that wasn’t anywhere near a smile. ‘Or—worse—turn it into party central for irresponsible playboys like himself.’

Layla chewed her lower lip, her thoughts in a tangled knot. If Bellbrae was sold, what would happen to her great-aunt? Where would Aunt Elsie live if not here? Her great-aunt lived in a little cottage on the estate where she had spent the last forty years. Like Layla, it was the only home she knew. And what would happen to Logan’s grandfather’s elderly dog, Flossie? The dog was almost blind and would find a move to another place even more distressing than Aunt Elsie would. ‘There must be something you can do to challenge the terms of your grandfather’s will.’

‘The will is ironclad.’ He turned away to look at the view from the windows, even the sound of his feet moving across the carpet conveyed his disgust.

‘Why did your grandfather write it in such a way?’ Layla asked into the echoing silence. ‘Did he talk to you about it before he…?’ She still found it hard to believe the old man was gone.

Packing up Angus McLaughlin’s things had made her realise how different Bellbrae would be without him. Picky and pedantic, he hadn’t been the easiest person to get along with, but over the last few months Layla had made a point of ignoring his bad points and had found him to have a softer side he’d been at great pains to keep hidden.

Logan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and partially turned from the window to look at her. ‘He’s been telling me for years to settle down and do my duty. Marry and provide a couple of heirs to continue the family line.’

‘But you don’t want to get married.’ It was a statement, not a question.

A shadow passed through his gaze like a background figure moving across a stage. He turned back to face the view from the windows; there might as well have been a ‘Keep Away’ sign printed on his back. It seemed a decade before he spoke. ‘No.’ His tone had a note of finality that made something in Layla’s chest tighten.

The thought of him marrying someone one day had always niggled at her like a mild toothache. She could ignore it mostly but now and again a sharp jab would catch her off guard. But how could he ever find someone as perfect for him as Susannah? No wonder he was a little reluctant to date seriously these days. If only Layla could find someone to love her with such lasting loyalty. Sigh.

‘What about a marriage of convenience? You could find someone who would agree to marry you just long enough to fulfil the terms of the will.’

One of his dark eyebrows rose in a cynical arc above his left eye. ‘Are you volunteering for the role as my paper bride?’

Eek! Why had she even mentioned such a thing? Maybe it was time to stop reading paperback romances and start reading thriller or horror novels instead. Layla could feel a hot flush of colour flooding her cheeks and bent down to straighten the items in her basket to disguise it. ‘No. Of course not.’ Her voice was part laugh, part gasp and came out shamefully high and tight. Her? His bride of convenience? Ha-di-ha-ha-ha. She wouldn’t be a convenient bride for anyone, much less Logan McLaughlin.

A strange silence crept from the far corners of the room, stealing oxygen particles, stilling dust motes, stirring possibilities…

Logan walked back to where she was hovering over her cleaning basket, his footsteps steady and sure. Step. Step. Step. Step. Layla slowly raised her gaze to his inscrutable one, her heart doing a crazy tap dance in her chest. She drank in the landscape of his face—the ink-black prominent eyebrows over impossibly blue eyes, the patrician nose, the sensually sculpted mouth, the steely determined jaw. The lines of grief etched into his skin that made him seem older than he was. At thirty-three, he was in the prime of his life. Wealthy, talented, a world-renowned landscape architect—you could not find a more eligible bachelor…or one so determined to avoid commitment.

‘Think about it, Layla.’ His tone was deep with a side note of roughness that made a faint shiver course through her body. A shiver of awareness. A shiver of longing that could no longer be restrained in its secret home.

Layla picked up her basket from the floor and held it in front of her body like a shield. Was he teasing her? Making fun of her? He must surely know she wasn’t marriage material—certainly not for someone like him. She was about as far away from Susannah as you could get. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

His hand came down to touch her on the forearm, and even through two layers of clothing her skin tingled. She looked down at his long strong fingers and disguised a swallow. She could count on one hand the number of times he had touched her over the years and still have fingers left over. His touch was unfamiliar and strange, alien almost, and yet her body reacted like a crocus bulb to spring sunshine.

‘I’m serious,’ he said, looking at her with watchful intensity. ‘I need a temporary wife to save Bellbrae from being sold or destroyed and who better than someone who loves this place as much as I do?’

But you don’t love me.

The words came into her head at random but she had no way of getting rid of them. They were like gate-crashers at a party, unwelcome, intrusive. Forbidden. Yep, she definitely had to switch reading genres. Layla slipped out of his hold and moved a couple of steps back, still holding her basket in front of her body. ‘I’m sure you can find someone much more suitable to be your wife than me.’

Someone beautiful.

Someone glamourous.

Someone perfect.

‘Layla, I’m not talking about a real marriage here.’ His frown was back, his voice as steady and calm as a patient teacher speaking to a slow student. ‘It would be a marriage on paper and would only last a year, max. We wouldn’t even have to go through the charade of a big wedding. We could marry privately with only the minimum witnesses required to make it legal.’

Layla rolled her lips together, her gaze slipping away from his. Her mind was wheeling round and round like a hamster on performance-enhancing drugs. A short-term marriage to Logan McLaughlin to save Bellbrae. To save her great-aunt and Flossie the geriatric dog. Layla would wear Logan’s ring but not be a real bride. Given her dating record, it might be her only chance to be anyone’s bride. Could she agree to spend the year being ‘married’ to Logan? Living with him for all intents and purposes as if they had married for all the right reasons?

But who would ever believe she was the love of his life?

Layla brought her gaze back up to meet his. ‘Aren’t you worried what people might say? I mean, the upstairs-downstairs thing? I’m the housekeeper’s orphaned great-niece. You’re the Laird of the castle. I’m hardly what anyone would consider a suitable bride for you.’

His frown carved a trench between his midnight-blue eyes. ‘Why are you so hard on yourself? You’re a beautiful young woman. You have nothing to be ashamed of.’

Wow. A compliment.

A warm glow flooded through her body, her self-esteem waking from a coma. Beautiful, huh? That certainly wasn’t what her mirror told her, but then Logan had never seen the full extent of her scars. But a compliment was a compliment and she was going to take it at face value for once. She brought her gaze back to his, keeping her tone even. ‘And what happens when the year is up?’

‘We have the marriage annulled and get on with our lives as before.’

Layla put down the cleaning basket and wiped her suddenly damp palms on her thighs. She had suffered temptation before and mostly resisted. Mostly. But walking past a bowl of her great-aunt’s Belgian chocolate mousse was clearly not in the same league as agreeing to be Logan’s temporary bride. She would be in close contact with him, not sleeping with him but living with him.

Sharing his life for a Whole Year.

How was she going to stop herself from developing feelings for him? Feelings that were already lurking in the background like a secret smouldering coal that only needed a tiny whiff of oxygen to leap into a scorching hot flame. She could feel it now—the slow burn of attraction that made her aware of every movement he made. Every time he took a breath, every time he frowned, every time his gaze meshed with hers.

‘I don’t expect you to do this for nothing, Layla. I’ll make sure you are financially well compensated.’ He named a figure that made her eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly flew off her face.

Now was probably not the time to tell him she would have done it free. There was probably never going to be that time. Logan had loved and loved deeply and had tragically lost that love. No woman would ever take the place of his fiancée and any woman who thought she could would be a silly romantic fool.

But the amount of money he was offering would allow Layla to expand her cleaning business into a household concierge service as well. She could take on more staff so she didn’t have to do so much of the physical work, which increasingly tired her. It would mean she could be at the helm of her business playing to her strengths instead of her weakness.

Layla raised her chin, keen to portray a cool and steady composure she was nowhere near feeling. ‘I’d like a day or two to think about it.’ She was proud of the evenness of her tone given the pitty-pat, pitty-pat hammering of her pulse.

His expression barely changed but she sensed a restrained relief sweeping through him. ‘Of course. It’s a big decision and not without its risks, which brings me to a difficult but necessary discussion.’

Layla knew where he was going with this and it annoyed her that he thought her so gauche for it to even be a possibility for her to fall in love with him. She was definitely no Jane Eyre. She might find him ridiculously attractive and her pulse might go a little crazy when he was around but that’s as far as it could ever go. As far as she would let it go. She had willpower, didn’t she? She would send it to boot camp ASAP.

She raised her brows in twin arcs of derision. ‘Oh, the one about me not getting any silly ideas about falling head over heels in love with you?’

Heels? Now that was the stuff of fantasy.

If he was taken aback by her bluntness, he didn’t show it. ‘I would hate you to get hurt in the process of helping me save Bellbrae. We both love this place but it doesn’t mean we have to fall in love with each other.’

Layla painted a stiff smile on her lips but something inside her shrivelled. Of course, he would never fall in love with her. Why would he? She was more or less invisible to him and had been for the past fourteen years. But for him to rule the possibility out at the get-go was still a slap in the face to her feminine ego. ‘Message received loud and clear.’

He gave a slight nod, the quiet intensity of his gaze unsettling her already shaky equilibrium. ‘Here—I’ll carry your basket downstairs for you.’

He stepped forward to pick up her basket at the same time she bent down to get it. Their hands met on the handle and a jolt of electricity shot up Layla’s arm and straight to her core, fizzing like the ignited wick of a firework. She pulled hers out away and straightened but in her haste, she lost her balance and would have fallen if it hadn’t been for the quick action of Logan grabbing her arm to hold her steady. His fingers overlapped on the slim bones of her wrist and another wave of heat coursed through her body. Heat that simmered and sizzled in all her secret places.

His gaze locked with hers and she got the strangest sense he was seeing her for the first time. The slight flare of his pupils, the gentling of his fingers around her wrist less of a steadying hold, more like that of a caress. She could smell the cool fresh lime top notes of his aftershave and the base notes of cool forest wood and country leather. She could see the various shades of blue flecks in his eyes, reminding her of flickering shadows over a deep mountain lake. His lean jaw was lightly sprinkled with regrowth; the dark pinpricks a reminder of the potent male hormones surging around his body.

His mouth…

Her heart skipped a beat. Her stomach flip-flopped. Her female hormones started a party. She should not have looked at his mouth. But she was drawn by an impulse she had zero control over. His lips were more or less even in volume with well-defined contours that hinted at his determined, goal-achieving personality. She wondered what his mouth would feel like pressed to her own. Wondered and wanted and wished for it to happen.

‘Are you okay?’ His voice was husky and low—as low as an intimate lover’s voice.

Layla stretched her lips into a polite smile that felt shaky around the edges. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ She stepped out of his hold to create some distance between them but she couldn’t help noticing he was opening and closing his fingers as if to remove the same tingling sensation she had felt. Or maybe he hadn’t felt tingles. Maybe he was disgusted…as disgusted as her teenage date all those years ago when he’d seen her damaged body.

‘I’ll go and see to your room.’ Layla injected housekeeper briskness into her tone. ‘I assume you’re staying for a night or two?’

‘It depends.’

‘On?’

His unwavering gaze held hers. ‘On your decision.’

‘And if I say no?’

A fault line of tension rippled along his jaw and an embittered light came into his eyes. ‘You and your great-aunt will no longer have a home here. Not if my brother Robbie has his way.’

Logan waited until Layla had left before he let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. But truth be told, he felt like he’d been holding his breath ever since he’d found out the contents of his grandfather’s will. Nothing could have come as more of a shock than finding the survival of the Bellbrae estate was dependent on him finding a wife. A wife, he had resolutely decided seven years ago, he would never have.