The Prospective Wife

The little witch was patronising him! The fact she looked like a fantasy figure made the fact she acted like a damned nanny all the more unpalatable. What sort of underwear did a nanny-pin-up hybrid wear—naughty black lace or prissy white cotton? His mental preoccupation with her damned underwear represented yet another example of his diminished mental control to Matt.

‘Client?’ he snarled. ‘A fancy name for a patient! Bloody doctors!’ he yelled, his frustration showing. ‘What do they know…?’

Hell! Why not go the whole way and stamp your feet, Matt? Small wonder her smile had a definite smug tinge to it. What, he wondered, had happened to the man of few words—none of them sulky—who could alter the course of a high-powered meeting with an effortlessly enigmatic look? It was humiliating to be forced to recognise he’d substituted infantile for enigmatic!

‘About flying a helicopter, probably nothing,’ she soothed. Matt was beginning to be able to predict the precise moment that dimple would peep out. ‘About relieving pain, hopefully quite a lot. It might seem very macho to suffer in silence, but there’s nothing particularly clever about suffering when there’s no need. There’s no disgrace in admitting you need help.’ With a small frown, her critical eyes ran over his stubbornly erect figure. If he’d ever had any excess flesh on his greyhound lean frame, it had been burned off long ago. ‘Actually, I’m surprised they discharged you so soon.’

‘So soon?’ he blasted. The memory of weeks and months of immobility was still in sharp focus in his mind as glared with intense dislike at the interfering female his mother had seen fit to inflict upon him.

‘They didn’t discharge him,’ Joe volunteered. ‘Though I suspect they might be breathing a large collective sigh of relief about now. You’ll probably find this hard to believe, but he was the perfect patient up until about three weeks ago… Uncomplaining, charming…’

‘Displaying the desired degree of dog-like obedience…’ Matt cut in savagely.

‘You’re right, I do find it hard to believe.’

Matt glanced at her sharply. So Miss Sugar and Spice had claws, he mused thoughtfully. The discovery made her slightly less objectionable…very slightly.

‘Then almost overnight it was bye-bye Mr Nice Guy! I suppose everyone has their breaking point, even Matt Devlin.’

‘I think you’re rather overplaying the irony,’ Matt growled darkly.

‘You always have had a problem with delegating, haven’t you, Matt?’ Joe observed, with an innocent smile. ‘I think he’d have secretly preferred it if his empire had crumbled without him at the helm.’

Matt glared at his oldest friend with intense dislike.

Kat found the talk of empires—a private joke, maybe—a bit confusing, but what she did understand from this interchange brought a deep furrow to her wide smooth brow.

‘So he discharged himself against medical advice…?’ Drusilla had said nothing about that!

‘What if I did?’ Matt asked belligerently. ‘And, if it’s not too much bother, do you mind not talking about me in the third person? I’ve had it up to here—’ he jabbed his hand up against his forehead, which did nothing to improve his headache, and almost made him lose his balance ‘—with medical busybodies! There’s nothing more anyone else, no matter how many medical degrees they’ve got, can do for me now. Anything that happens from this point onwards is up to me.’

Kat’s worried frown grew more pronounced. If he wasn’t prepared to accept limitations he could put back his recovery months.

‘I’ll have to talk to your doctor,’ she announced decisively. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Hasn’t it sunk in yet, baby-face? I fired you. Come to that, I never even employed you!’

‘I’m not working for you; I’m working for Drusilla.’

‘Drusilla,’ Matt drawled with a cynical smile. ‘How cosy.’

‘Metcalf. His doctor’s called Metcalf.’

Joe decided the angel’s smile was well worth the murderous glare he received from Matt.

‘And the clinic is…?’

‘There’s a name for friends like you,’ Matt announced grimly when the so-called physio had whisked busily away to have a heart-to-heart with his doctor.

Joe smiled unrepentantly back. ‘Sorry old son. Why don’t you sit down?’ he suggested. ‘I already know you’re made of steel,’ he added slyly as Matt limped over to an armchair. ‘It strikes me, Matt, you’re being awkward for the sake of it. You said yourself what a pain it was going to be traipsing off to the local hospital for physio every other day.’

‘I’m quite capable of employing my own physio. And if the babe doesn’t go, I will! I don’t have to stay here,’ he railed. ‘If my place has got too many steps I’ll buy another one. I’ve no intention of going along with one of my mother’s little schemes.’

Joe grinned. ‘She just wants to see you with a good woman.’

Matt’s expression grew even more cynical. ‘Of her choosing.’

‘Well, maybe she’s got a point. Delegating the task might not be such a bad idea…not with your track record. I mean, what man in his right mind would get engaged to Angela!’

‘I wasn’t engaged to Angela, except in her fevered imagination.’

‘You know that, I know that, but thousands of readers of the popular press think you’re an object of pity.’

‘Thanks for that, Joe. I feel better already,’ Matt came back, dry as dust.

‘You’ve had your chance to set the record straight,’ Joe reminded him, tongue firmly in his cheek.

A scornful sound escaped Matt’s throat. ‘I’d prefer to slit my throat than become a human interest story in a women’s magazine.’ There was genuine horror in his eyes.

‘How can you be so sure she isn’t genuine…?’

Matt gave a derisive snort. ‘You have a charmingly naïve view of women, Joe. I think I almost envy you…’

‘I’m not bitter and twisted, and proud of it,’ Joe added with a touch of lazy defiance.

‘You’re just a sucker for a pretty face…’

‘Pretty doesn’t really do her justice.’

‘I find it hard to see past the simpering smile.’

Kat’s bosom swelled with indignation—she’d never simpered in her life! Her fingers tightened around the doorhandle.

‘Matt!’ Joe ejaculated, shocked by the irreverence.

Matt remained unrepentant. ‘My mother is totally unscrupulous when it comes to getting what she wants, and at the moment she wants a grandchild. She’s always thought no man can resist a cleavage.’ His expression was grim as he reflected on the callous machinations of his manipulative parent.

‘To tell you the truth, Matt, as far as cleavages go I’ve always thought much the same myself.’ Joe admitted.

Despite the pain he was enduring, Matt’s lips twitched. ‘Under that choir-boy façade, Joe Casey, there lurks the soul of a debauched swine.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing. You can’t tell me you don’t find her at all attractive?’ Joe regarded his friend with open scepticism.

On the point of walking in, Kat paused. She found her own hesitation predictable and pathetic, but what girl, she reasoned, could resist hearing whether a man—even if she didn’t like him—found her fanciable…?

‘She’s got all the right equipment, but it’s the cabbage scenario.’

‘Cabbage?’ Joe’s tone echoed the sort of bewilderment Kat was feeling.