Close Your Eyes (2 page)

‘A
nd the second?’
He could tell she was intrigued.

Most probably imagining
me
asking for something really dirty,
he thought, almost sorry to disappoint her.

‘I will call you
Meg
an
for tonight
.
’
H
is voice ca
ught
ever so slightly.

The woman
didn’t
seem to
notice
.
She
nodd
ed
matter-of-factly
.

I’m probably not
the only one
who’s ever asked
for such a service,
he thought sarcastically
. He knew that
many fantasies
had been
lived out in the safety of the
club’s
walls
since
he
had
started to frequent
it
a few weeks ago.

‘That’s a pretty name
.
’
S
he smiled, her even
,
white teeth glistening in the semidarkness.

He could tell she felt much more in control now
that
the preliminary negotiations
were
safely out of the way.
That was fine with him.
He was on a rather tight schedule
with only
three hours to spare
before he had to leave for home.

‘Is it a girlfriend you’re missing?’
She cocked her head to one side with a playful expression.

Matt realized he needed to respond in kind
, if only to
avoid giving
her ideas
that
were
uncomfortably
too close to the truth
.
His answer h
ad to be clean and simple
.
H
e nodded and grinned, hoping to be convincing.

‘Yeah, something like that
.
’
He
wryly decided he
must have inherited some of his mother’s acting skills
when the woman
smiled and shook her dark, glossy mane.

‘I thought so
.
’
She
was in conquering mode now,
all her skills focused on her job
. ‘You don’t
really
strike me as someone who would need to invent a woman for himself. I bet there are plenty of them just waiting to get
with you
.’

He smiled again, wondering momentarily what
she would
say if
he told her
the truth.
He didn’t particularly care for d
eception and social norms.

But
he couldn’t
do what he had been doing his whole life
.
This
wasn’t one of those times when he just
could
afford to
get
himself in
to
trouble for saying exactly what he meant and ignoring the
resulting
uproar.

This was about
Meg
. He couldn’t drag her with him into
the
pit of shame and embarrassment that would follow if the truth
ever reached
his family or hers.

Admitting
to paying
an escort to pretend to be his brother’s girlfriend would certainly qualify for a scandal that would embarrass not only his family
,
but
most importantly
,
Meg
. He could just imagine all the gossip and spiteful comments she would have to endure for his foolish obsession. She didn’t deserve any of it, not now and not ever.

It was
entirely
his fault that he could not let go of
the
insan
e idea that
had
started years ago. For t
he first time
,
Matt
wished he
were
his brother
as
t
he sibling rivalry finally
caught up
with
him
in the most unexpected way. He couldn’t care less for Ry
an
’s right
as the firstborn
to lead the family
agriculture
and
forestry
business and the privileges that came with
being the older brother
. If anything,
Matt
was relieved to be able to skip the hoopla that Ry
an
was
forced to accept.
Managing the hundreds of prime acres of land the family owned and wisely incorporating horse breeding and real estate development projects would certainly keep his brother busy for years to come.

Seeing Ry
an
and
Meg
together changed all that.
Matt
had witnessed
his brother’s
childhood
friendship
with Meg
blossom into a romance.
Meg
an belonged to Ry
an
,
and
Matt
would have
to live with
that idea
for the rest of his life.

Only
,
sometimes
,
that
wasn’t so easy. Sometimes
,
he
needed to pretend things were different.
Pretending
allowed
him to go back home and be the man
Meg
expected to see
:
h
er boyfriend’s little brother.

Meg
an
Mc
Intyre
had always known she
wanted to mar
ry Ryan. She was certain they
wo
uld end up together
when she
noticed him on the first
day of kindergarten
at
the
Whiteoaks
Academy
. He
had been
impossible to miss, if only because of the horrible fuss his brot
her
was
making. Actually, when
ever she
thought
about
those first few moments
of seeing Ryan
,
Megan
remembered
Matt
’s voice
the most
.
Or rather, she remembered his piercing scream
as he
furiously
stomped his skinny legs
and scrunched
his little freckled face into a grimace of absolute misery.

‘Mommy, I want to stay
,
too. Why can’t I
stay with
Ry
?’ H
e was hyperventilating, his eyes overflowing with tears that ran down his red cheeks. ‘Why,
why,
why?’

Ryan’s
mom was a
saint
,
Megan
had no doubt about it. Instead of losing her temper, which would be completely understandable
,
given the scene
Matt
was causing, she bent down to her sobbing, hysterical son and hugged him, her
lovely face serene
.
Meg
an
had seen
that expression on her face
on the large screen,
where
she played
Victorian
ladies
and dramatic heroines.
Not
that she
had been
allowed to watch any
of those performances
, of course. But both her mom and her aunts idolized
Elisa Harper
and
Megan
knew her name better than was suitable for a five year old.

‘Sweetie, how about we g
o for some ice cream
,
instead?’
The boys’ mother
ignored
Matt's
furious wailing. ‘
We
can go see the horses if you want. We will come pick
Ry
up in a couple of hours, ok
ay
?’

‘I want to stay here
.’ S
tubborn and sulky,
Matt
shook his blond head with a determination that was somewhat disturbing i
n a
four-year-old
. As young as
Meg
an
was, she
noticed that the teacher’s patient smile was becoming quite strained, her lips stretched out in a false cordiality that children
always
see through.
The teacher
must have thought
Matt
was the biggest brat ever, the way he
demanded to be included in the
class.