One Bridegroom Required!
Sharon Kendrik
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing 100th book! Many of these books are available as e books for the first time.The only man to tempt herDress designer Holly Lovelace had the perfect wedding dress, but she was certain she’d never find the right bridegroom. Meeting Luke Goodwin changes her mind: he’s rich, seriously sexy…only he isn’t interested in wedding bells!Luke can’t deny that Holly is incredibly desirable — but he knows that means trouble! Beautiful women are never faithful. But innocent Holly believes that marriage is for a lifetime… she just has to convince Luke that she’s a one-man woman — as long as that man is Luke!Don’t miss the linked books One Wedding Required and One Husband Required by Sharon Kendrick!
Dear Reader (#u17d306ed-173a-5306-b79e-9170bd2df16f),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
One Bridegroom Required!
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#u135f1a3f-9c9e-53e3-a444-70bca01a2107)
Dear Reader (#ueeb6b830-bb3d-5e1a-90bb-f3ace548ff9d)
About the Author (#uca2bd03b-3ec4-5be1-803b-75666077f0a7)
Title Page (#u9ea3c086-de5d-5a3e-907d-6b534a6edf01)
PROLOGUE (#u3b6549ac-7a64-58c7-93d5-1db5935f1363)
CHAPTER ONE (#u3e882bff-30f1-5ea6-b20a-7beebc85346c)
CHAPTER TWO (#u9edc15b8-a779-5eaa-879b-ad1c40bfa8cd)
CHAPTER THREE (#u6455aa43-14a0-51ee-9051-205e7c5953a4)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_372414c4-573e-5057-8f24-18e0f9b6088c)
THE wedding dress gleamed indistinctly through its heavy shrouding of plastic.
It was an exquisite gown—simple and striking and fashioned with care from ivory silk-satin. Organza whispered softly beneath the skirt and the matching veil was made of gossamer-fine tulle.
At a little over twenty years old, it was ageless and timeless, a future heirloom—to be passed down from bride to bride, each woman adapting it and making it uniquely hers.
But for now it remained locked in a wardrobe, hidden and protected and unworn.
And waiting...
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_5d0f5af0-42a1-5568-95ee-25877ee4157a)
LUKE GOODWIN stood in front of the big, Georgian window and gave a sigh of satisfaction which not even the bleak November day could dispel. He stared at the unfamiliar landscape before him. It was a loveless time of year in England, once the last of the leaves had fallen.
The sky was as grey as slush and the clouds had an ominous bulge which spoke of heavy rains to come. It was as unlike the golden and blue African skies he had left behind as it was possible to be.
Yet the green chequerboard of fields which stretched as far as his eye could see was now his. As was this graceful old house with enough bedrooms to sleep a football team. His hard mouth softened into a smile as he tried to take it all in, but it was hard to believe that this, all this beauty, now belonged to him.
Oh, a different type of beauty from the one he was used to, that was for sure. His beauty had been searing heat and blazing cerulean skies. The scent of lemons and the puff of fragrant smoke wafting from the barbecue. There had been bare rooms where giant fans cast their flickering circles across bleached ceilings—so different from the elegant Georgian drawing room in which he now stood.
He had been here only eight hours and yet felt he knew the house as intimately as any lover. He had arnved in the middle of the night, but had walked the echoing floors in silence, examining each room and reacquainting himself with each chair, each moulding. Running his long fingers along their pure, clean surfaces with the awe of a mother studying her newborn.
His heart sang with possession—not for the house’s worth, but for its link with the past, and the future. Like a rudderless boat, Luke had finally found the mooring of his dreams.
He let his eyes grow accustomed to the view. Through an arched yew hedge was a clutch of thatched cottages, a pub, a few tasteful and essential shops—as well as the added bonus of a village green with accompanying duck pond. England at its most picture-perfect. His senses were stretched with fatigue, and the soft beauty of his childhood home had never seemed quite so poignant.
Next month Caroline would arrive from Africa, in time for Christmas. Caroline who, despite her associations with that country, was the epitome of an English rose. Caroline with her soft, understated beauty and her unflappability and her resourcefulness. Not his usual kind of woman at all...
Somehow, God only knew how, she had arranged for a woman to come and clean the house for him. She hadn’t let the matter of a few thousand miles affect her organisational skills!
He guessed it was yet another indication of how much his tastes had matured. Luke’s wild and rollicking adventuring days were over, and he was ready to take on all the responsibilities which his inheritance had brought. Sometimes your life changed and there wasn’t a damned thing you could do about it.
Luke smiled the contented smile of a man who had found what he was looking for.
Life, he decided, was just like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and the last piece had just slotted effortlessly into place.
Holly clicked off the ignition key just before the engine cut out of its own accord in the middle of the narrow village street. Number ninety-nine on her list of things to do, she thought with dark humour—change her car.
If only she didn’t love it so much! An ancient old Beetle which she had lovingly painted herself, because that was the kind of thing that students did. It was just that she wasn’t a student any more..
She slowly got out of the car and stood on the pavement, staring up at the empty building with eyes which half refused to believe that this shop was now hers.
Lovelace Brides. The place where every bride-to-be would want to buy the wedding outfit of her wildest and most wonderful dreams. Where she, Holly Lovelace, intended to transform each woman who set foot over that threshold into the most amazing bride imaginable!
Holly shivered. She should have worn her thermals. The November air had a really hungry bite to it and the gauzy shirt she was wearing would be better suited to a summer’s day.
Still, now was the time to open up the shop, and then just haul her stuff inside and unpack the basics—like vests and tea bags! She could risk moving the car later.
She was just fishing around in her shoulder bag for the great clump of keys which seemed to have got lost among all the clutter at the bottom, when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching.
Holly looked up sharply and her hair tumbled in copper-curled disarray all over her shoulders. She felt her mouth fall open in slow motion as she focussed on the man walking towards her, then blinked, as if her eyes were playing tricks on her. She blinked again. No, they weren’t. Holly stared, then swallowed.
He was quite the most gorgeous man she had ever seen, and yet somehow he looked kind of wrong walking down the sleepy village street. Holly frowned. It wasn’t just that he was tall, or tanned, or lean where it counted—though he was all of these, and more. Or that his broad shoulders and rugged frame spoke of a man you didn’t mess with. Holly looked a little closer. His hair was dark—dark as muscovado sugar—and the ends were tipped with gold.
He wore jeans, but proper, workmanlike jeans—faded by constant use and hard work, not from stone-washing in a factory. And they weren’t sprayed on so tightly that any movement looked an impossibility—with legs like his they wouldn’t need to be.
With his thick cream sweater and battered sheepskin jacket, he looked vital and vibrant—like a Technicolor image superimposed on an old black-and-white film. More real than real. He made the drizzly grey of the day seem even more insignificant and Holly found that she couldn’t drag her eyes away from him.
He came to a halt right in front of her, jeaned legs astride, returning her scrutiny with a mocking stare of his own.
Now she could see that his eyes were blue—bluer than the sea, even bluer than a summer’s sky. A dreamer’s eyes. An adventurer’s eyes.
Holly felt that if she didn’t speak she would do something unforgivable—like reach her hand out and touch the hard, tanned curve of his jaw. Just for the hell of it.
‘Hello,’ she smiled, thinking that if all the men in Woodhampton looked like this, then she was going to be very happy working here!
He stared back, at dark copper curls and white skin and green eyes, the colour of jealousy. For Luke it was like being stun-gunned—that was the only thing he could think of right then. Or hit, maybe. A physical blow might explain the sudden unbearable throbbing of his blood, the heated dilation of the veins in his face. He could feel his mouth roughen and dry and the beginning of an insistent ache in a certain part of his anatomy which filled him with sudden self-loathing.
The woman was a complete stranger—so how in hell had unwanted desire incapacitated him so completely and so mercilessly and so bloody suddenly?
Holly had to concentrate very hard to stop her knees from buckling, since her long legs seemed to have nothing to do with her all of a sudden. And why on earth was he staring at her like that?
‘Hello,’ she said again, only more coolly this time, because it wasn’t very flattering to be ignored. ‘Have we met before?’
His expression didn’t change, but his voice was impatient. ‘Don’t play games. You know damned well we haven’t.’ He treated her to a parody of a smile. ‘Or I think we would have remembered. Don’t you?’
His voice was deep and dark, his accent impossible to define, and yet his words were mocking. Made her question into a meaningless little platitude. Yet he was right. She would have remembered. This was a man you would never forget. He would stamp his presence indelibly on your heart and mind and eyes.
Holly gave him a sideways look. ‘Perhaps I would.’ She shrugged quietly. ‘I’ve certainly had better greetings in my life.’
‘Oh, I bet you have, sweetheart,’ he agreed softly, and managed to make the words sound like an insult. ‘I bet you have.’
Suddenly Holly wished she were wearing some neat little boxy suit and a pair of tights, with shoes you could see your face in, instead of a faded pair of denims and a too-thin shirt. Maybe then he’d wipe that hungry, mean-looking expression off his face and show her a little respect. Though respect you had to earn, and she wasn’t sure she’d care to earn anything from him...
‘So what do you want?’ she asked, not caring if it sounded abrupt. ‘You must want something, the way you’re staring at me like you’ve just seen a ghost—un—less I have a smudge on my nose, or something?’
Staring at the pure lines of her lips, which were untouched by lipstick, Luke felt fingers of fantasy enmeshing him in their grasp. ‘You haven’t,’ he told her huskily. ‘And as to what I want, well, that rather depends—’
‘On?’
He bit back the crude, unaccustomed sexual request he was tempted to make and channelled it instead into indignation, clipping out his words like bullets as he pointed to her Beetle. ‘On whether that rust bucket of a car happens to belong to you, or not?’
‘And if it does?’ She tipped her head back and narrowed her eyes, and her hair swung in a copper curtain all the way down her back.
‘If it does, then it’s the worst piece of parking I’ve seen in my life!’ he drawled.
Holly saw the light of combat sparking in the depth of unforgettable blue eyes and wondered what was causing this definite overreaction. Bad experience? ‘Oh, dear. Have you got a thing about women drivers?’ she asked him sweetly.
‘Not at all. Just bad drivers.’ His mouth flattened into a hard line. ‘Though most women seem to need a space the size of an airstrip to park.’
Holly almost laughed until she saw that he meant it. She shook her head slowly. ‘Heavens!’ she murmured. ‘I can’t believe that anyone would come out with an outdated sexist remark like that, not when we’re almost into the millennium—talk about a gross generalisation!’
Luke found himself mesmerised by her eyes. Too green, he thought suddenly. Too wide and too deep. For the first time in his life he understood the expression ‘eyes you could drown in’. Tension caused his throat to tighten up. ‘Really?’ he drawled huskily. ‘Not even if it happens to be true? That’s usually how generalisations come into being.’
Holly’s mouth twitched. Very clever; but not clever enough. She wasn’t going to let him get away with that. ‘You’ve done comparative research on male and female parking behaviour, have you?’
‘I don’t need to, sweetheart. I base my opinions on my own experience.’
‘And your experience of women is extensive, no doubt?’
‘Pretty much.’ His gaze was cool as it flicked over her, and then suddenly not so cool. ‘But you still haven’t told me whether it’s your car, or not?’
He knew damn well it was! Holly held her palms up in supplication. ‘Okay, I admit it, Officer,’ she told him mockingly, and then dangled the keys from her finger provocatively. ‘The car is mine!’
It had been a long time since a woman had made fun of him quite so audaciously. ‘Then might I suggest you move it?’ he suggested softly.
Her eyes narrowed at the unfriendliness in his tone. ‘Why the hell should I?’
‘Because not only is it an eyesore—it’s dangerous!’
It occurred to her briefly that if it had been anyone else talking to her in this way, then she would have asked them to show her a little courtesy. So why let him get away with it? Because he looked like her every fantasy come to life? Every other woman’s fantasy, come to that.
A voice in her head told her that she was playing with fire, but she didn’t listen to it, and afterwards she would cringe when she remembered what she said next. And the way she said it. ‘Only if you ask me nicely,’ she pouted.
Luke drew in a deep breath of outrage and desire, his mind dizzy with the scent of her, his eyes dazzled by the slim, pale column of her neck, the ringlets which floated down over her ripe, pointed breasts.
She looked like a student, he thought hungrily, with her well-worn denims and that gauzy-looking top, which was much too cold for winter weather and made the tips of her breasts thrust towards him. He forced himself to avert his eyes because he’d known plenty of women like this one. Foxy. Easy. Too easy. Women like this were put on this earth with no purpose other than to tempt.
And he was through with women like that.
He thought of Caroline, and swallowed down his guilt and his lust. ‘Just do it, will you?’ he told her dismissively. And he walked on without another look or glance—even though he could feel her eyes burning indignantly into his back.
Holly hadn’t felt so mad for years, but then she couldn’t ever remember being spoken to like that by a man. Not ever. The men she had met at college were ‘in touch’ with their feminine sides—strong on respect, weak on sex appeal. Not like him.
She stared at his retreating form and winced, wondering how she could have been so cloying and so obvious. Pouting at him like the school tease. But then sometimes you found yourself reacting in inexplicable ways to certain people—and she suspected that he was the type of man who provoked strong reactions.
Still. Men were a fact of life—even irascible ones. No, especially irascible ones! And she was a businesswoman now—she simply couldn’t afford to let herself get uptight just because someone had got out of the wrong side of bed that morning. She watched him push open the door to the general store at the end of the street, telling herself that she was glad to see the back of him.
She unlocked the shop door and stepped over a stack of old mail and circulars. She hadn’t been here since the summer, on one of the most beautiful, golden days of the year, when she had taken the lease on, and she found herself wondering what the shop would lopk like in this cold and meagre November light.
Inside it was so gloomy that Holly could barely see. She clicked on the light switch and then blinked while her eyes accustomed themselves to the glare thrown off by the naked lightbulb, and her heart fell It obviously hadn’t been touched since the day she had signed the lease.
The air wasn’t just thick with dust—it was clogged with it, and cobwebs were looped from the ceiling like ghostly necklaces, giving the interior of the shop the appearance of an outdated horror movie. It might have been funny if it hadn’t been her livelihood at stake.
Holly scowled, then coughed. Dust was the enemy of all fabrics, but it was death to the exquisite fabrics she tended to work with. So. What did she do first? Unpack the car? Make a cup of tea? Or make inroads into the neglect?
She half closed her eyes and tried to imagine just what the place would look like all decorated with big mirrors and fresh paint. Dramatic colours providing a rich foil for the snowy, showy gowns. But it was no good—for once her imagination stubbornly refused to work.
A dark shadow fell over her and Holly turned her head to see the man with the denim-blue eyes standing in the doorway. He stepped into the shop as if he had every right to.
He made the interior feel terribly claustrophobic. Holly found herself distracted by those endless legs, the dizzying width of his shoulders, and she felt a warm, unfamiliar tightening in her belly. He was, she noticed inconsequentially, carrying two cartons of milk, a box of chocolate biscuits and a newspaper. So—whoever he was—he certainly didn’t have much in the way of domestic routine!
‘Well, hello again,’ said Holly, and smiled into the denim-coloured eyes.
‘What in hell’s name are you doing in here?’
‘I’m admiring all the dust and cobwebs—what does it look like?’
‘That isn’t what I meant and you know it!’ he growled. ‘How did you get in here?’
Holly stared at him as if he’d gone completely mad. ‘How do you think I got in? By picking the lock?’
He shrugged his massive shoulders as if to say that nothing would surprise him. ‘Tell me.’
‘I used my key, of course!’
‘Your key?’
‘Yes,’ she defended, wondering if he always glared at people this much. She waved the offending item in front of him. ‘My key! See!’
‘And how did you get hold of a key?’
‘I clutched it between my fingers and thumb, just like everyone else does!’
‘Don’t be facetious!’
‘Well, what do you expect when you come over so heavy? How on earth do you think I got it? It’s mine. On loan. I’m renting.’
‘Renting?’
Her mouth twitched. ‘Do you know—you have a terrible habit of repeating everything I say and making it into a question?’
‘You’re renting the shop?’ he persisted in disbelief, as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘This shop?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’
Holly smiled at his belligerence. ‘Well, you’ve barged in here as if you own the place, asking me questions as though I’m on the witness stand, so I suppose one more won’t make any difference. Why do people usually rent a shop? Because they want to sell something, perhaps? Like me—I’m a dress designer.’
He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he agreed slowly, and an ironic smile touched the corners of his mouth. ‘Yes, you look like a dress designer.’
Holly noted the disapproving look on his face and was glad she wasn’t opening an escort agency! ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so. I fit the stereotype, do I?’
He shrugged. ‘I guess you do.’ His eyes flickered to the gauzy shirt, where the stark outline of her nipples bore testimony to the cold weather. ‘You wear unsuitable clothes. You drive a hand-painted, beaten-up old car—I wasn’t for a minute labouring under the illusion that you were a bank clerk!’
‘Nothing wrong with bank clerks,’ Holly defended staunchly.
‘I didn’t say there was,’ came his soft reply. ‘So tell me why you’re renting this shop.’
‘To sell my designs.’
He frowned as he tried to picture the insubstantial and outrageous garments in which emaciated models sashayed up the catwalk. He tried to imagine Caroline or any other woman he knew wearing one. And the only one who could get away with it was the leggy beauty standing in front of him. ‘Think there’ll be a market for them around here, do you?’ he mocked. ‘It’s a pretty conservative kind of area.’
She ignored the sarcasm. ‘I certainly hope so! There’s always a market for bridal gowns—’
His dark eyebrows disappeared beneath the tawny hair. ‘Bridal gowns?’
‘There you go again,’ she murmured. ‘Yes. Bridal gowns. You know—the long white frocks that women wear on what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives.’ She waited for him to say something about his wedding day, which was what people always did say. But he didn’t. And Holly was both alarmed and astonished at the great sensation of relief which flooded through her at his lack of reaction. He isn’t married! she found herself thinking with a feeling which was very close to elation, and then hoped she hadn’t given anything away in her expression.
‘You design bridal gowns?’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘Maybe that’s because I am. You aren’t exactly what most people have in mind when they think of wedding dresses.’
‘Too young?’ she guessed.
‘There’s that,’ he agreed. ‘And marriage is traditional...’ his eyes glimmered ‘...which you ain’t.’
‘I can be. I know how to be.’
Interesting. ‘And you’ll be living—?’
‘In the flat upstairs, of course.’ She smiled in response to his frowned reaction to that, and wiped a dusty hand down the side of her jeans before extending her hand. ‘I guess we’d better introduce ourselves. I’m Holly Lovelace of Lovelace Brides.’ She smiled disarmingly. ‘Who are you?’
‘Holly Lovelace?’ He started to laugh.
‘That’s right.’
‘Not your real name, right?’
‘Wrong. I’ve got my birth certificate somewhere, if you’d like to check.’
He looked down at the hand she was still holding out, and shook it, her narrow fingers seeming to get lost within the grasp of his big, rough palm. ‘I’m Luke Goodwin,’ he said deliberately, and waited.
‘Hello, Luke!’
There was another brief pause as he savoured a heady feeling of power. ‘You haven’t heard of me?’
‘You’re absolutely right. I haven’t.’
‘Well, I’m your new landlord.’
Holly was too busy blinking up at him to respond at first. Up this close he was even more divine. He had the kind of mouth that even the most hardened man-hater would have described as irresistible. She was just wondering what it would be like to be kissed by a mouth like that when his words seeped unwillingly into her consciousness.
‘But you can’t be my landlord!’ she protested. Landlords were pallid and wore pinstriped suits, not faded jeans and a golden tan which she suspected might be all over.
He slanted a look at her from between sultry azure eyes. ‘Oh? Says who?’
‘Says me! You’re not the person I signed the lease with!’
‘And who did you sign the lease with?’
‘I had to meet a man in Winchester—’
‘Called?’
‘Doug Something-or-Other...’ Holly frowned as she recalled the smoothie who had tried plying her with gin and tonics in the middle of the day and sat leering at her thighs. His oily attitude had had a lot to do with the speed with which she had signed the lease. ‘I know! Doug Reasdale, that was it.’
‘Doug’s the letting agent,’ he informed her. ‘He acted for my uncle.’
‘Well, he certainly didn’t mention that there was an absentee and highly hostile landlord!’ snapped Holly.
‘No longer absentee,’ he amended thoughtfully. ‘And Doug neglected to mention to me that he’d just rented out one of my properties to someone who doesn’t even look old enough to vote!’
‘I’m twenty-six, actually,’ she corrected him tightly. She was getting fed up with people thinking she was just a kid. Maybe it was time she started wearing a little make-up, maybe even cut her hair...
‘Twenty-six, huh?’ He looked at the wild tangle of her curls and her wide-spaced green eyes. Bare lips that excited...invited... Right at that moment she looked like jail bait. ‘Well, maybe you should try acting it,’ he suggested softly.
Holly smirked. ‘Really? That’s neat, coming from you! You mean I should follow your shining example of adult behaviour and start throwing my weight around? I thought that dictatorships had gone out of fashion until I met you!’
‘But clearly a very ineffective dictatorship in this case,’ he observed, trying very hard not to laugh, ‘since I asked you to move your car, but it still seems to be taking up half the road!’
‘You didn’t ask me anything!’ she fumed. ‘You issued the kind of order that I haven’t heard since I was at school!’
‘Then you were obviously a very disobedient schoolgirl,’ he murmured, before realising that the conversation was in danger of sliding helplessly into sexual innuendo and that he was in very great danger of responding to it.
Holly had never met a man she found as physically attractive as the one standing in front of her, and maybe his allure was responsible for what she did next. She tried to tell herself that it was purely an instinctive reaction to that suggestive velvet whisper, but, whatever the reason, she found herself slanting her eyes at him like a courtesan. ‘Why?’ she murmured provocatively, and put her hands on her hips. ‘Have you got a thing about schoolgirls?’
Luke froze. When she leaned back like that it was easy to see that she wasn’t wearing a bra, that her lush breasts were free and unfettered. He saw the way her lips were parted into a smile and he knew for certain that, if he tried to kiss her right then, she would melt into his arms in the way that so many women had done before. But no more. His mouth hardened.
‘I’ll tell you what I have a “thing” about,’ he said carefully. ‘And that’s people who take on more than they’re obviously capable of—’
‘Meaning me?’
‘Meaning you,’ he agreed evenly, as he fought to keep his feelings under control. ‘You clearly can’t tell your left from your right, judging by your parking—so heaven only knows how you intend to run a thriving business! Or maybe that’s why you enjoy flirting with me so outrageously. Maybe you suspect that you’re destined to fail? Perhaps you like to have a little something to fall back on, huh? So that if your business goes bust, then the landlord might be lenient with you.’
Holly stared at him, first in horror, then in disbelief. Then with an irresistible desire to giggle. ‘My God, you’re actually being serious, aren’t you? Are you really from planet Earth, or have aliens just dropped you here? Or do you honestly think that I’d leap into bed with you if I didn’t have enough money to pay the rent?’
Luke knew that he had two choices. If he allowed her to think that he had actually meant that outrageous suggestion, then she would seriously underestimate his critical judgement—and Luke didn’t like being underestimated by anyone. If she underestimated him then she wouldn’t respect him either, and for some reason the thought of that disturbed him. Then he thought of Caroline, and swallowed. Maybe, under the circumstances, that would be the best of the two options.
Alternatively, if he laughed it off—then some of this rapidly building tension might dissolve...
He relaxed and let his blue eyes crinkle at the corners. It was a calculated move because he knew only too well the effect that particular look had. It worked on everyone—men, women, children, animals. It was a charm he had in abundance, but he had never used it quite as deliberately as he did right now. ‘Don’t be absurd,’ he denied softly. ‘It was just a joke.’
‘Pretty poor taste joke, commented Holly, but it was impossible not to thaw when confronted by that melting blue gaze.
‘Listen, why don’t I help you unload your roof-rack so that you can move your car more easily?’ He smiled at her properly then, and Holly honestly couldn’t think of a single objection.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ef5d73cf-0727-53b9-b7a5-9be7f6e6a78c)
‘UNLESS,’ Luke queried, blue eyes narrowing, ‘you have someone else to help you?’
Holly shook her head. ‘Nope. Just me. All on my own.’
‘Well, then. Show me what needs doing.’
She looked into his eyes, confused by this sudden softening of his attitude towards her. One minute he was Mr Mean, the next he was laying on the charm with a trowel, and—surprise, surprise—he was very good at that! ‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch.’
‘Well, that’s very sweet of you—’ she began, but he shook his head firmly.
‘No, not sweet,’ he corrected. ‘I am never sweet, Holly.’
‘What, then?’ She wrinkled her nose at him. ‘Let’s go on what we know about you already. Kind? Polite? Gentlemanly?’
He laughed, and even that felt like a brief betrayal, until he told himself that he was being stupid. Men could be friends with women, couldn’t they? Or, if not actually friends, then friendly. Just because you had a laugh and a joke with a woman, it didn’t mean that the two of you automatically wanted to start tearing each other’s clothes off.
‘Let’s just say that it wouldn’t rest very easily on my conscience if I walked away knowing that I had left you to deal with that outrageous amount of luggage. I’m kind of old-fashioned like that.’
Holly regarded him steadily, but her heart was beating fast. She wasn’t used to men coming out with ruggedly masculine statements like that last one. ‘You mean that I’m too much of a delicate female to be able to manoeuvre a couple of suitcases off the roof-rack?’
‘Delicate?’ Luke looked her over very thoroughly, telling himself that she had asked the question, and therefore he needed to give it careful consideration.
She was getting on for six feet—tall for a woman—with correspondingly long limbs. She had legs like a thoroughbred, he thought, then wished he hadn‘t—long and supple legs that seemed to go all the way up to her armpits. She was slim and narrow-hipped, but not skinny in the way that tall women very often could be. And her breasts were almost shocking in their fullness—they looked curiously and beautifully at odds with her boyish figure. ‘No,’ he growled. ‘I wouldn’t call you delicate.’
She wondered if he had noticed that she was blushing. Maybe not. He hadn’t exactly been concentrating on her face, now, had he? There had been something almost anatomical in the way he had looked at her. If any other man had stared at her body quite so blatantly, she suspected that she would have asked them to leave. But she didn’t feel a bit like asking Luke to leave. With Luke she just wanted him to carry on looking at her like that all day long.
‘So do you want my help, or not?’
Holly swallowed, wishing that everything he said didn’t sound like a loaded and very sexy question. And the decision was really very simple—if she wanted to be totally independent and self-sufficient then she should decline his offer and do it all herself.
But a sensible person wouldn’t do that, would they? After all, she knew no one here, not a soul. Was she, the great risk-taker, really tying herself up in knots over a simple offer of assistance just because it happened to come from a man she found overwhelmingly attractive? Wasn’t that a form of sexism in itself?
‘Thanks very much! You can start bringing the stuff in from the car, if you like,’ she told him, trying to sound brisk and workmanlike, ‘while I go and see how habitable it is upstairs. I just hope it’s more promising than down here.’ But her voice didn’t hold out much hope. ‘Unless you happen to have been up there lately?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve never set foot inside the place before.’
Holly frowned. ‘But I thought you said you were the landlord?’
‘I did. And I am—but an extremely new landlord. It’s a long story.’ He shrugged, in answer to the questioning look in her eyes. In the dim winter light shining through the shop window he became acutely conscious of how pale her skin looked, how bright her green eyes. With the deep copper ringlets tumbling unfettered around her shoulders, she could have stepped straight out of a pre-Raphaelite painting, jeans or no jeans, and he suddenly felt icy with a foreboding of unknown source.
‘And you didn’t ask to see any credentials,’ he accused suddenly. ‘Basic rule of safety, number one.’ His eyes glittered. ‘And you broke it.’
‘Do you have any on you?’
‘Well, no,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘But the lesson is surely that I could be absolutely anyone—’
‘The impostor landlord?’ She hammed it up. ‘About to hurl me to the floor and have your wicked way with me?’
The air crackled with tension. ‘That isn’t funny,’ he said heavily.
‘No,’ she agreed, and her throat seemed to constrict as their gazes clashed. ‘It isn’t.’
‘In fact, it’s a pretty dumb thing to do—to put yourself in such a vulnerable situation,’ he growled.
Independent and self-sufficient—huh! She had fallen headlong at the first hurdle. ‘Okay. Okay. Lesson received and understood.’
He was still frowning. ‘You’d better give me the keys,’ he instructed tersely. ‘And I’ll move your car when I’ve unloaded all the stuff.’
Holly hesitated. ‘Er—you might find she’s a little temperamental in cold weather—like all cars of that age.’
‘I should have guessed!’ His voice was tinged with both irritation and concern—though he didn’t stop to ask himself why. How was she hoping to get a business up and running if she was this disorganised? ‘Why the hell don’t you buy yourself a decent car?’ he drawled. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that you might need something more reliable?’
His sentiments were no different from her own, but it was one thing deciding that she needed a newer car for herself—quite another for a complete stranger to bossily interrogate her on why she hadn’t bought one!
‘Of course it occurred to me,’ she agreed. ‘But reliable usually means boring. And expensive. To get an interesting car that you can count on costs a lot more money than I’m prepared or able to spend at the moment.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘But don’t worry if she won’t start first time. A little coaxing usually works wonders.’
That smile was so cute. He threw her a lazy look in response. ‘And I’m a dab hand at coaxing the temperamental.’
‘Just cars?’ she quizzed, before she could stop herself. ‘Or women?’
He held her gaze in mocking query. ‘Do you always make assumptions about people?’
‘Everyone does. You did about me. And was my assumption so wrong?’
‘In this case, it was. I was talking about coaxing horses, actually—not the opposite sex.’
He had hooked his fingers into the loops of his jeans as he spoke, and he suddenly looked all man—all cowboy. Holly nodded and bit back a smile. It all made sense now. He had looked completely wrong strolling down a sleepy English village street, with his jeans and battered sheepskin and tough good looks. But she could picture him on horseback—legs astride, the muscle and the strength of the man and the animal combining in perfect harmony. It was a powerful and earthy image and she found that persistent fingers of awareness were prickling down her back. ‘Really?’ She swallowed. ‘Round here?’
‘No. Not round here. I’ve only just got back from Africa.’ He read the question in her eyes. ‘It’s a long story.’
That might explain the tan. ‘Another one? So when did you get back?’
He glanced down at the watch on his wrist—a tough-looking timepiece which suited him well. ‘About twelve hours ago.’
‘Then you must be jet-lagged?’
‘Yeah, maybe I am.’ Could he blame this troublesome tension on jet-lag, he wondered, or would that be fooling himself? He took the keys from her unprotesting fingers. ‘You go on up and I’ll start moving the stuff.’
Masterful, thought Holly wistfully, then immediately felt guilty as she found the staircase at the back of the shop, which led directly to the flat upstairs. Masterful men were very passé these days, surely?
The stair carpet was worn, and upstairs the accommodation was basic—in a much worse state than the shop below. Holly sniffed. It had the sour, dark tang of a place unlived in.
She glanced around, trying to remember what had caught her enthusiasm in the first place There was an okay-sized sitting room, whose window overlooked the street, a small bedroom containing a narrow and unwelcoming-looking bed, a bathroom with the obligatory dripping tap, and a kitchen which would have looked better in a museum. So far, so bad.
But it was the main bedroom which had first attracted her, and Holly sighed now with contentment as she looked at it again. Dusty as the rest of the apartment, it nonetheless was square and spacious, with a correspondingly high ceiling, and would be absolutely perfect as a workroom.
She heard footsteps on the stairs and went out to the landing to see Luke, with a good deal of her belongings firmly clamped to his broad shoulders.
She rescued a tin-opener which was about to fall out of an overfull cardboard box. ‘You shouldn’t carry all that!’ she remonstrated. ‘You’ll do yourself damage.’
He barely looked up as he put down two big suitcases and brushed away a lock of the dark, gold-tipped hair which had fallen onto his forehead. ‘Nice of you to be so concerned,’ he said wryly. ‘But I’m not stupid. And I’m used to carrying heavy weights around the place.’
She watched unobserved while he took the stairs back down, three at a time. Yes, he was. A man didn’t get muscles like that from sitting behind a desk Holly had grown up in the city, and city men were what she knew best. And they tended to have the too-perfect symmetry gained from carefully programmed sessions in the gym. Whereas those muscles looked natural. She swallowed. Completely natural.
It wasn’t until he had done the fourth and final load, and dumped her few mismatched saucepans in the kitchen, that Luke stood back, took a good look around him and scowled.
‘The place is absolutely disgusting! It’s filthy! I wouldn’t put a dog in here! Didn’t you demand that it be cleaned up before you took possession?’
‘Obviously not!’ she snapped back.
‘Why not?’
Because she had been blinded by the sun and by ambition? Mellowed by the gin and tonic which Doug Reasdale had given her, and an urgent need to get on with her life? ‘I was just pleased to get a shop of this size for the money,’ she said defensively.
His voice was uncompromising. ‘It’s a dump!’
‘And I assumed that’s why it was so cheap—I understood that you took a property on as seen, and this was how I saw it.’
‘And who told you that? Doug?’
‘That’s right. But I checked it out afterwards, and he was absolutely right.’
He laughed, but there was a steely glint in his eyes. ‘Lazy bastard! I’ll speak to him.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she told him, with a shake of her head. ‘Like I said—I didn’t exactly insist.’
‘He took advantage of you,’ he argued.
No, but he’d have liked to have done, thought Holly, with a shudder.
‘Sounds like you need a little brushing up on your negotiation techniques.’ He frowned as he looked around, his mouth flattening with irritation. ‘This place is uninhabitable!’
As if on cue, a rattle of wind chattered against the window-pane and raindrops spattered on the ledge. Luke threw another disparaging glance around the room. On closer inspection, there was a small puddle on the sill where the rain obviously leaked through on a regular basis.
‘If I’d been around there is no way I would have let you move into a place when it was in this kind of state.’
‘Well, there’s no point saying that now because you weren’t around,’ she pointed out. ‘Were you?’
‘No.’ God, no. But now he was.
Their eyes met again, and Luke tried to subdue the magnetic pull of sexual desire. It had happened before—this random and demanding longing—but never with quite this intensity. It was sex, pure and simple. And it meant nothing, not long term—he knew that. Its potency and its allure would be reduced by exposure and it was completely unconnected with the real business of living, and relationships.
He should get out of here. Now. Away from those witchy green eyes and those soft lips which looked as if they could bring untold pleasure to a man’s body.
Yet some dumb protective instinct reared its interfering head, and when he spoke he sounded like a man who’d already made his mind up. ‘You can’t stay here when it’s like this.’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ said Holly quietly.
There was a pause.
‘Oh, yes, you do,’ came his soft contradiction.
Holly stared at him in confusion, convinced by the dark look on his face that he was going to tell her to go back where she came from—back where she belonged. But this wasn’t the Wild West, and she was a perfectly legitimately paid-up leaseholder of this flat! She gave a little smile. ‘Really? And what’s that?’
Luke wondered if he had just taken leave of his senses. ‘Well, you could always come up to the house and stay with me,’ he offered.
She searched his face. ‘You’re kidding!’
‘Why should I be? I feel responsible—’
‘Why should you feel responsible?’
‘Because it’s bleak and cold in here, and because the property is mine and I have enough bedrooms to cope with an unexpected guest.’
‘But I don’t even know you!’
He laughed. ‘There’s no need to make me sound like Bluebeard! And what’s that got to do with anything? You must have shared flats with men when you were a student, didn’t you?’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’
‘So how well did you know them?
‘That’s different.’
‘How is it different?’
The difference was that none of her fellow design students—for all their velvet clothes and pretty-boy faces and extravagant gestures and prodigious talent—had appealed to Holly in any way that could be thought of as sexual. She had shared flats with men of whom she could honestly say it wouldn’t have bothered her if they had strutted around the place stark naked. Whereas Luke Goodwin...
She thought of soft beds and central heating, and couldn’t deny that she was tempted, but Holly shook her head. ‘No, honestly, it’s very kind of you to offer, but I’ll manage.’
‘How?’
‘I’m resourceful.’
‘You’ll need to be,’ he gritted, his eyes going to the grey circle of damp on the ceiling. ‘I’ll have someone fix that tomorrow.’
He started to move slowly towards the door, and Holly realised that she was as reluctant for him to leave as he appeared to be. ‘Would you like some tea? As a kind of thank-you for helping me bring my stuff up?’ she added quickly. ‘And you’re the one with the milk!’
‘And the biscuits!’ He found himself almost purring in the green dazzle of her eyes. ‘That would be good.’ He nodded, ignoring the logic which told him that he would be far wiser to get out now, while the going was good. ‘I left them downstairs. I’ll go and fetch them.’
The room seemed empty once he had gone, and Holly filled the kettle and cleared a space in the sitting room, dusting off the small coffee-table and then throwing open the window to try and clear the air.
But the chill air which blasted onto her face didn’t take the oddly insistent heat away from her cheeks. She found herself wondering what subtle combination of events and chemistry had combined to make her feel so attracted to a man she had known less than an hour.
But by the time Luke returned with the milk and biscuits she had composed herself so that her face carried no trace of her fantasies, and her hand was as steady as a rock as she poured out two mugs of tea and handed him one.
‘Thanks.’ He looked around him critically. ‘It’s cold in here, too.’
‘The window’s open,’ she said awkwardly.
‘Yeah, I’d noticed.’
‘I’ll shut it.’ The room now seemed so cramped, and he seemed so big in it. Like a full-sized man in a doll’s house—and surely it wasn’t just the long legs and the broad shoulders. Some people had an indefinable quality—some kind of magnetism which drew you to them whether you wanted it or not, and Luke Goodwin certainly had it in spades.
She perched on the edge of one of the overstuffed armchairs. ‘So what were you doing in Africa?’
He cupped the steaming mug between strong, brown hands and stared into it. ‘I managed a game reserve.’
Holly tried hard not to look too impressed. ‘You make it sound like you were running a kindergarten!’
‘Do I?’ he mocked, his blue eyes glinting.
‘A bit.’ She crossed her legs. ‘Big change of scenery. Do you like it?’
‘Give me time,’ he remonstrated softly, thinking that, when he looked at those sinfully long legs, he felt more alive than he had any right to feel. And the scenery looked very good from where he was sitting. ‘Like I said—I just got in late last night.’
Holly found that breath suddenly seemed in very short supply. ‘And are you here for...good?’
‘That depends on how well I settle here.’ He shrugged, and he screwed his eyes up, as if he were looking into the sun. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve lived in England.’
She thought that he didn’t sound as though he was exactly bursting over with enthusiasm about it. ‘So why the upheaval? The big change from savannah to rural England?’
He hesitated as he wondered how much to tell her. His inheritance had been unexpected, and he had sensed that for some men in his situation it could become a burden. He was Luke—just that—always had been. But people tended to judge you by what you owned, not by what you were; he’d met too many women who had dollar signs where their eyes should be.
Yet it wasn’t as though he feared being desired for money alone. He had had members of the opposite sex eating out of his hand since he was eighteen years old. With nothing but a pair of old jeans, a tee shirt and a backpack to his name, he had always had any woman he’d ever wanted. And a few he hadn’t, to boot. Even so, it was important to him that he had known Caroline before he had inherited his uncle’s estate. And what difference would it make if Holly Lovelace knew about his life and his finances? He wasn’t planning to make her part of it, was he?
‘Because my uncle died suddenly, and I am his sole heir.’ He watched her very carefully for a reaction.
Holly’s eyes widened. ‘That sounds awfully grand.’
‘I guess it is.’ He sipped his tea. ‘It was certainly unexpected. One morning I woke up to discover that I was no longer just the manager of one of the most beautiful game reserves in Kenya, but the owner of an amazing Georgian house, land and property dotted around the place, including this shop.’
‘From ranch hand to lord of all he surveys?’
‘Well, not quite.’
‘But a big inheritance?’
‘Sizeable.’
‘And you’re a wealthy man now?’
‘I guess I am.’
So he had it all, Holly realised, simultaneously accepting that he was way out of her league—as if she hadn’t already known that. There certainly weren’t many men like Luke Goodwin around. He had good looks, physical strength and that intangible quality of stillness and contemplation which you often found in people who had worked the land. And now money, too. He would be quite a catch.
She let her eyes flicker quickly to his left hand and then away again before he could see. He wore no ring, and no ring had been removed as far as she could tell, for there wasn’t a white mark against the tan of his finger.
‘You aren’t married?’ she asked.
Straight for the jugular, he thought. Luke was aware of disappointment washing in a cold stream over his skin. He shook his tawny head. ‘No, I’m not married.’ But still he didn’t mention Caroline. He could barely think straight in the green spotlight of her eyes. ‘And now it’s your turn.’
She stared at him uncomprehendingly. ‘My turn?’
‘Life story.’ He flipped open the packet of biscuits and offered her one.
Holly gave a short laugh as she took one and bit into it. ‘You call that a life story? You filled in your life in about four sentences.’
‘I don’t need to know who your best friend was in fifth grade,’ he observed, only it occurred to him that ‘need’ was rather a strong word to have used, under the circumstances. ‘Just the bare bones. Like why a beautiful young woman should take on a shop like this, in the middle of nowhere? Why Woodhampton, and not Winchester? Or even London?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? Because, unless you work for yourself, you have very little artistic control over your designs. If you work for someone else they always want to inject their vision, and their ideas. I’ve done it since I left art school and I’ve had enough.’
‘You’re very fortunate to be able to set up on your own so young,’ he observed. ‘Who’s your backer?’ Some oily sugar-Daddy, he’d bet. An ageing roué who would run his short, stubby fingers proprietorially over those streamlined curves of hers. Luke shuddered with distaste. But if that was the case—then where was he now?
‘I don’t have a backer,’ she told him. ‘I’m on my own.’
He stared at her with interest as all sorts of unwanted ideas about how she had arranged her finances came creeping into his head. ‘And how have you managed that?’
She heard the suspicion which coloured his words. ‘Because I won a competition in a magazine. I designed a wedding dress and I won a big cheque.’
Luke nodded. So she had talent as well as beauty. ‘That was very clever of you. Weren’t you tempted just to blow it?’
‘Never. I didn’t want to fritter the money away. I wanted to chase my dream—and my dream was always to make wedding dresses.’
‘Funny kind of dream,’ he observed.
‘Not really—my mother did the same. Maybe it runs in families.’
She remembered growing up—all the different homes she’d lived in and all the correspondingly different escorts of her mother’s. But her mother had always sewn—and even when she’d no longer had to design dresses to earn money she had done it for pleasure, making exquisite miniatures for her daughter’s dolls. It had been one of Holly’s most enduring memories—her mother’s long, artistic fingers neatly flying over the pristine sheen of soft satin and Belgian lace. The rhythmic pulling of the needle and thread had been oddly soothing. Up and down, up and down.
‘And why here?’ He interrupted her reverie. ‘Why Woodhampton?’
‘Because I wanted an old-fashioned Georgian building which was affordable. Somewhere with high ceilings and beautiful dimensions—the kind of place that would complement the dresses I make. City rents are prohibitive, and a modern box of a place wouldn’t do any justice to my designs.’
He looked around him with a frown. ‘So when are you planning to open?’
‘As soon as possible.’ There was a pause. ‘I can’t afford not to.’
‘How soon?’
‘As soon as I can get the place straight. Get some pre-Christmas publicity and be properly established by January—that’s when brides start looking for dresses in earnest.’ She looked around her, suddenly deflated as the enormity of what she had taken on hit her, trying and failing to imagine a girl standing on a box, with yards of pristine ivory tulle tumbling down to the floor around her while Holly tucked and pinned.
‘It’s going to take a lot of hard work,’ he observed, watching her frown, wondering if she had any real idea of how much she had taken on.
Holly was only just beginning to realise how much. ‘I’m not afraid of hard work,’ she told him.
Luke came to a sudden decision. He had not employed Doug Reasdale; his uncle had. But the man clearly needed teaching a few of the basic skills of management—not to mention a little compassion. ‘Neither am I. And I think I’d better help you to get everything fixed, don’t you? It’s going to take for ever if you do it on your own.’
Holly’s heart thumped frantically beneath her breast. ‘And why would you do that?’
‘I should have thought that was fairly obvious. Because I have a moral obligation, as your landlord. The place should never have been rented out to you in this condition.’ And that much, at least, was true. He told himself that his offer had absolutely nothing to do with the way her eyes flashed like emeralds, her lips curved like rubies when she smiled that disbelieving and grateful smile at him. ‘So what do you say?’
She couldn’t think of a thing. She felt like wrapping her arms tightly around his neck to thank him for his generosity, but the thought of how he might react to that made her feel slightly nervous. There was something about Luke Goodwin which didn’t invite affection from women. Sex, maybe, but not affection. ‘What can I say?’ she managed eventually. ‘Other than a big thank you?’
‘Promise me that if you can’t cope, then you’ll call on me.’
‘But I don’t know where you live.’
‘Come here,’ he said softly. He gestured for her to join him by the window, where the yellow light was fast fading like a dying match in the winter sky. He pointed. ‘See that house through the arched hedge?’
It was difficult not to—the place was a mansion by most people’s standards! ‘That’s yours?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it is. So if it all gets too much, or if you change your mind, then just walk on right up to the door and knock. Any time.’ Blue eyes fixed her with their piercing blaze. ‘And you’ll be quite safe there—I promise. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Holly agreed slowly, though instinct told her that seeking help from a man like Luke might have its own particular drawbacks.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_639252ce-f668-5d82-a944-ee51654fd775)
AS SOON as Luke got home, he phoned Doug Reasdale, his late uncle’s letting agent—a man he had just about been able to tolerate down the echoed lines of a long-distance phone call from Africa. He suspected that this time around he might have a little difficulty hanging onto his temper.
‘Doug? It’s Luke Goodwin here.’
‘Luke!’ oozed Doug effusively. ‘Well, what do you know? Hi, man—how’s it going? Good to have you back!’
‘After sixteen years away, you mean?’ observed Luke rather drily. He had met Doug once, briefly, when he had flown over for his uncle’s funeral earlier in the year. Luke and the agent were about the same age, which Doug had obviously taken as a sign of true male camaraderie since he had spent the afternoon being relentlessly chummy and drinking whisky like water.
‘It’s actually very good to be back,’ Luke said, realising to his surprise that he meant it.
‘So what can I do you for?’ quizzed Doug. ‘House okay?’
‘The house is fine. Beautiful, in fact.’ He paused. ‘I’m not ringing about the house.’
‘Oh?’
‘Does the name Holly Lovelace ring a bell?’
There was a low whistling noise down the phone.
‘Reddish hair and big green eyes? Legs that go on for ever? Breasts you could spend the rest of your life dreaming about? Just taken over the lease of the vacant shop?’ laughed Doug raucously. ‘Tell me about her!’
Luke’s skin chilled and he was filled with an uncharacteristic urge to do violence. ‘Is it customary to speak about leaseholders in such an over-familiar manner?’ he asked coldly.
Doug clearly did not have the most sensitive antennae in the world. ‘Well, no,’ he admitted breezily. ‘Not usually. But then they don’t usually look like Holly Lovelace.’ His voice deepened. ‘Mind you—not that I think she’s much of a goer—’
‘I’m sorry?’ Luke spoke with all the iced disapproval and disbelief he could muster.
‘Well, she’s got that kind of wild and free look—know what I mean? Wears those floaty kind of dresses—but oddly enough she was as prim as a nun the day I took her to lunch.’
‘You took her out to lunch?’ Luke demanded incredulously.
‘Sure. Can you blame me?’
Luke ignored the question. ‘And do you do that with all prospective leaseholders?’
‘Well, no, actually.’ Doug gave a nervous laugh. ‘But, like I said, she’s not someone you’d forget in a hurry.’
Luke forced himself to concentrate on the matter in hand, and not on how much he was going to enjoy firing his land agent once he had found a suitable replacement. ‘What do you think of the current condition of the property, Doug?’
Another nervous laugh. ‘It’s been empty for ages.’
‘I’m not surprised, and that doesn’t really answer my question—what do you think of the condition?’
‘It’s basic,’ Doug admitted. ‘But that’s why she got it so cheap—’
‘Basic? The place is a slum! The roof in the upstairs flat is leaking,’ he said coldly. ‘Were you aware?’
‘I knew there—’
‘The window-frames are ill-fitting and the furniture looks like it’s been salvaged from the local dump,’ interrupted Luke savagely. ‘I want everything fixed that can be fixed, and replaced if it can’t. And I want it done yesterday!’
‘But that’s going to cost you money!’ objected Doug. ‘A lot of money.’
‘I’d managed to work that out for myself,’ drawled Luke.
‘And it’s going to eat into your profit margins, Luke.’
Luke kept his voice low. ‘I don’t make profit on other people’s misery or discomfort,’ he said. ‘And I don’t want a woman staying in a flat that is cold and damp. If she gets cold or gets sick, then it isn’t going to be on my conscience. Got that?’
‘Er—got it,’ said Doug, and began to chew on a fingernail.
‘How soon can it be done?’
Doug thought of local decorators who owed him; carpenters who would be pleased to work for the new owner of Apson House. Maybe it was time to call in a few favours. And he suspected that his job might be on the line if he didn’t come up with something sharpish. ‘I can have it fixed in under a month!’ he hazarded wildly.
‘Not good enough!’ Luke snapped.
‘But good craftsmen get booked up ages in advance,’ objected Doug.
‘Then pay them enough so that they’ll unbook!’
‘Er—right. Would a fortnight be okay?’
‘Is that a definite?’
‘I’ll make sure it is,’ promised Doug nervously.
‘Just do that!’ And Luke put the phone down roughly in its cradle.
Holly washed out the two mugs she and Luke had used, put them on the drainer to dry, then set about trying to make the place halfway habitable before all the thin afternoon light faded from the sky.
The ‘hot’ water was more tepid than hot, so she boiled up a kettle, added the water to plenty of disinfectant and cleaning solution in a bucket, and began to wipe down all the surfaces in the kitchen. Next she scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom, until her fingers were sore and aching and she thought she’d better stop. Her hands were her livelihood and she had to look after them.
She sat back on her heels on the scruffy linoleum floor and wondered how many kettles of water it would take to fill the bath. Too many! she thought ruefully. She had better start boiling now, and make her bed up while she was waiting.
She gathered together clean sheets and pillowcases and took them into the bedroom, and was just about to make a start when she noticed a dark patch on the mattress and bent over to examine it. Closer inspection revealed that it was nothing more sinister than water from a tiny leak in the ceiling, but she couldn’t possibly sleep on a damp mattress—which left the floor.
She bit her lip, trying not to feel pathetic, but she was close to tears and it was no one’s fault but her own. Not only had she stupidly rented a flat which looked like a slum, but she had brought very little in the way of entertainment with her, and even the light was too poor to sew by. The only book in her possession was some depressing prize-winner she had been given as a present before she left, and a long Sunday evening yawned ahead of her. And now she couldn’t even crash out at the earliest opportunity because the bed was uainhabitable!
So, did she start howling her eyes out and opt for sleeping on the floor? Or did she start acting like a modern, independent woman, and take Luke Goodwin up on his offer of a bed?
Without giving herself time to change her mind, she pulled on a sweater, bundled on a waterproof jacket, and set off to find him.
Luke was sitting at the desk in the first-floor study, working on some of his late uncle’s papers, when a movement caught his attention, and he started with guilty pleasure, his eyes focussing in the gloomy light as he saw Holly walk through the leafy arch towards his house.
He watched her closely. With her long legs striding out in blue denim, she looked the epitome of the modern, determined woman. And so at odds with the fragility of her features, the wild copper confusion of the hair which the winter wind had whipped up in a red storm around her face.
He ran downstairs and pulled the front door open before she’d even had time to knock. He saw that she was white-faced with fatigue, and the dark smudges underneath the eyes matched the dusty marks which were painted on her cheeks like a clown. Again, that unwanted feeling of protectiveness kicked in like a mule. That and desire.
For a split second he felt the strongest urge to just shut the door in her face, telling himself that he was perfectly within his rights to do so. That he owed her nothing. But then her dark lashes shuddered down over the slanting emerald eyes and he found himself stepping back like a footman
‘Changed your mind about staying?’ he asked softly, though he noticed that she carried no overnight bag.
‘I had it changed for me,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘And you’re right—it is a dump! There’s no hot water, there’s a big patch of damp on the mattress and springs sticking through it! And before you point anything else out, I admit I should have checked it out better—insisted it be cleaned out before my arrival, or something. And I came ill prepared. No radio, no television, and the only book I brought with me is buried at the bottom of a suitcase I daren’t unpack because there’s nowhere to put anything! Just don’t make fun of me, Luke, not tonight—because I don’t think I can cope with it.’
He heard the slight quaver in her voice and saw the way her mouth buckled into a purely instinctive little pout. He thought how irresistible she was, with her powerful brand of vulnerability coupled with that lazy-eyed sensuality. ‘Come in,’ he growled quietly, and held the door open for her. ‘I have no intention of making fun of you. I’d much rather you came here than have you suffering in silence.’
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