The Engagement Deal

‘Don’t look at me like that.’ She sniffed. ‘It’s not my fault she didn’t tell you.’ She knew he had lovely manners; he was clever, witty, in a slightly cruel way. He walked into a room and people en masse fell under his spell. It only seems to be me, she thought, that can see past the high-voltage charisma and observe what a selfish, smug jerk he is. Although it seemed likely his ex-wife had caught on eventually, hence the ex!

‘God, just when I need her and she’s… Where is she?’

There he goes—me…me…me. The man’s so egotistical! She watched him slump down into one of the massive leather sofas with a small derisive smile. Her smile faded; she knew with gut certainty that he’d slumped there before! Was it the only thing he—they’d—done there? she found herself wondering.

‘New York.’ With a gulp, she drew a firm curtain over her lurid imaginings. What her sister got up to with this man—or any other—in the privacy of her own home was none of Holly’s business.

‘That’s it, then,’ he said with a grim finality. With one hand pulling at the tie around his neck, he sank his head into the deeply padded headrest and closed his eyes.

‘What’s it?’

His dark eyelashes lifted and from the expression in his eyes Holly had the distinct impression he’d forgotten that she was there. Either that or he was just hoping she’d gone away so he could indulge in a bout of self-pity.

‘I’m stitched up unless I can find a…’ He shot her a sudden hopeful glance; by the time his quick once-over had reached her toes, he was already shaking his head.

‘What are you doing here anyway, P…Holly?’ Why, he wondered, would a grown woman choose to wear those hideous stripy pyjamas?

‘The lease had run out on the flat I shared, and Rowena offered to let me hang my hat here until I get myself sorted.’ Her new contract was only for six months; afterwards, who knew where she’d be?

Niall could recall some mention of the sister being a student. In fact, Rowena had regaled a dinner party with quaint second-hand stories of student penury—he remembered thinking at the time that it probably wasn’t quite so amusing, up close—but all that had been a long time ago. There were lots of young people with good degrees who didn’t have a job. It sounded as if she was one of them.

He nodded without, she noticed indignantly, even pretending a scrap of interest in what she was doing in the present, future or for that matter what she had been doing since he’d last seen her almost ten years ago.

Ten years ago he’d been one of the select group of beautiful, brilliant people, including her sister, who had gravitated together at university. The charmed circle was how she’d always thought of them. Their glamorous lives had been equally charmed since they’d emerged to conquer the world, at least professionally—Niall wasn’t the only one of the charmed circle to be divorced, though his had been the most public and visible failure. Served him right for marrying his trophy girlfriend.

‘What’s Rowena doing in New York?’

‘The editor’s job here is hers when Annabel moves onwards and upwards in six months. They want Rowena to…’ Holly’s slim shoulders lifted. ‘I don’t know what they actually want her to do,’ she confessed. The inner workings of a glossy international fashion magazine were a closed book to her. ‘But they want her over there, and they didn’t hang around once they’d made up their mind.’ Which obviously accounted for Niall’s ignorance.

‘We probably passed each other mid-Atlantic,’ he mused. ‘Good for Rowena.’ Despite his words he still looked pretty gloomy about his friend’s—did ‘friend’ cover their relationship?—success. Obviously he was more concerned about how it would inconvenience him! Thank goodness I don’t have any friends like him, she decided with virtuous disapproval.

‘I’m sure she’d have refused if she’d known of your dire need.’

Her sweet voice was acid laced. Niall shot her a sharp look, and wasn’t fooled by the round-eyed innocence of the sarcastic little witch! Yes, there was something of the witchy woman about her, with those big dark eyes and that wild hair.

‘I’m very happy for Rowena. I know this is what she’s been working for.’ And scheming for, if he knew Rowena, he thought with affectionate admiration. She was a woman who knew exactly what she wanted from life and went for it. ‘I’m just more unhappy for myself.’

‘Yes, it must be so hard,’ Holly commiserated gently. His eyes swept over her face, half-query, half-irritation in their depths. ‘Being healthy…’ —and that was some understatement; the man simply oozed a restless vitality— ‘Rich, handsome…’ She didn’t even mention the stately pile and title that would be his when his father died.

Even though he was sitting down he managed to look down his nose at her, a distinctive masterful nose identical to those she’d seen on several of his ancestors’ portraits. She’d seen the paintings that covered the walls of his family’s ancestral home, Monksleigh Manor. She’d visited the house during its one open day a year—the one occasion mere mortals like herself were given the opportunity to drool over the accumulated wealth and history of the Wesley family.

‘Thank you.’ He smiled.

Holly felt suddenly less confident. On the whole, she preferred the snooty disdain to that heart-stopping grin.

‘For what?’ she wondered suspiciously.

‘Handsome…?’ One dark satanically slanted brow quirked.

Holly gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Like you had no idea.’

He gave a modest shrug of his shoulders, but behind the cynical amusement in his eyes she thought she glimpsed something that was more weary acceptance. Did he find it hard to be judged by most people on his startling good looks? Holly dismissed this revolutionary idea with a frown. Who wouldn’t like having conversations stop when they walked into a room?

‘What did you want Rowena for, anyway?’ She thought for a second he was going to tell her to mind her own business, but then his sensual lips twisted into a wry smile.

‘Why not?’ he said to nobody in particular. ‘I was going to ask her to be my fiancée tonight.’

The breath whooshed out of her lungs in one noisy gasp and Holly plonked herself down on the nearest chair. ‘You wanted to ask Rowena to marry you?’ Under the circumstances, he was allowed to look a little piqued—at the very least!

‘Did I say that?’

Holly, who had just started breathing again, felt her hackles rise when he looked at her as though she was incredibly dense. ‘You said you wanted her to be your fiancée.’

‘I’ve every intention of never getting married again. I only need a fiancée for tonight. The only halfway plausible reason for getting married, in my opinion, is to have a family—I’ve already got one, end of story.’

It was a plausible theory if you’d never seen the gorgeous Tara. ‘You can’t expect anyone to believe the only reason you married Tara was to have babies!’ she hooted. She was no expert on male mental processes, but no man she’d ever come across looked at a supermodel and thought about babies.

‘Although,’ he conceded, choosing to loftily ignore her snide little interjection. ‘Rowena is probably the only woman I’d even consider…’ Knowing Rowena’s opinion of the married state, he felt quite comfortable making a claim like this.

With shocked disgust, Holly recognised the knife twist in her guts as jealousy. She suddenly had a nauseating vision of herself in a dire frilly pink bridesmaid dress stumbling up the aisle behind the glowing vision of her sister. He might be an ex-fantasy figure, but she’d have to be a saint to be actually happy for her sister under these circumstances, and unhappily she was no saint.

‘You’re not making any sense.’ Except with the bit about Rowena being the only woman he’d marry—he was being very clear there.

Had he asked, and been turned down? she wondered, her imagination now working in top gear. Rowena had some very inflexible ideas about a career and marriage and she often said that a girl couldn’t have both if she wanted to succeed in either.

‘You’re just not listening. It’s quite simple. I wanted Rowena to pretend to be my fiancée for tonight.’ He carelessly flicked an invisible speck off his immaculate dark trousers.

‘Pretend?’ The man made it sound a completely normal suggestion. ‘Why…?’ She cleared her throat and continued before he could tell her it was none of her business. ‘Do you drop in many mornings and make requests like that?’

The blue eyes lifted once more to her face. ‘You did say…morning?’

‘So…?’ With a bolshy little glare, she got to her feet. The dignified action was spoilt somewhat by the fact she tripped over the overlong leg of her pyjama trousers. She half-expected to see him smirking when she shot him a dark warning glance, but he wasn’t.

It occurred to Niall for the first time that the pyjamas that totally swamped her diminutive figure belonged, in fact, to a man. Somewhat bizarrely, the idea that she might have been sharing the bed in the adjoining room with a man shocked him.

He supposed he still had her fitted into the niche in his brain marked Rowena’s baby sister, a funny intense little thing with braces. He checked…No, they were gone. There were other changes too, notably the clear creamy complexion. Niall suddenly felt depressingly past his prime.

‘It’s not morning.’

Disbelief showed in her heart-shaped face, closely followed by panic. He was in no position to judge; he’d had some pretty wild nights in his time, too.

‘What day is this?’ she asked after a small frozen pause.

Niall blinked. His hadn’t been that wild! ‘It’s Wednesday evening.’ He watched her sink weakly back down into the chair she’d just vacated.

‘Are you serious?’ she asked hoarsely.

‘What day did you think it was?’