Authors: Kim Lawrence
‘Not as much as the children are,’ he said grimly.
‘How many?’
‘Four.’
‘It must have come as quite a shock to your fiancée.’ Her eyes opened wide. An instant family would be a daunting prospect for any woman.
‘She wasn’t my fiancée at the time. Are there any other personal details you want to know? My collar size, inside leg? Feel free, but then I’m sure you will.’
They’d got engaged after he’d inherited a family. With a speculative frown she sipped her steaming brew.
‘Starting married life with four children must take a bit of adjustment.’
‘Starting married life at all takes some adjustment.’
Anna stared critically at him over the rim of her cup. ‘I hope you can work up more enthusiasm for your fiancée.’
‘I wouldn’t be taking this step if it wasn’t for the children.’
This calm pragmatism went against every romantic bone in her body. ‘And does the lady in question know this?’
‘Jessica was happy with things as they were, as I was. She’s risen to the occasion magnificently.’
‘I’m glad you appreciate the sacrifice.’ It occurred to her that he sounded bizarrely impersonal about the whole thing. ‘Have you and… Jessica been living together for long?’
‘Ever heard of tactful reticence?’
Anna crossed her shapely ankles and felt no stirrings of repentance. ‘If I thought you had feelings that might be hurt I’d have been more discreet, but…’ Her smile silently conveyed her confident dismissal of this theory.
‘I could just wait for the local grapevine to supply all the nitty-gritty details,’ she suggested, pursing her lips thoughtfully. ‘It’ll probably take about two weeks for details to percolate down. Admittedly accuracy is sometimes sacrificed to enthusiasm—’
‘Jessica and I have never lived together.
Satisfied?
’
‘Never?’
‘We both preferred to have our own space.’ His patience appeared to be wearing thin.
This Jessica might of course be a saint…but Anna was deeply suspicious of a woman who wasn’t after commitment and yet was happily taking on an instant family.
She whistled softly and threw Adam a gently taunting smile. ‘Well, you won’t have much space now, will you? If you’d wanted to get married I’d have thought you’d
have done something about it by now. How long have you been seeing one another? A year…two?’
‘Three as a matter of fact. I’ve been a friend of the family for years.’
Anna gave a derisive squawk. ‘How
passionate
; you really swept her off her feet.’
‘Are you implying I’ve pressurised Jessica?’ he began.
Good Lord, he really did have an unexpected touch of naivety! Hadn’t it occurred to him that this woman had found this situation an ideal opportunity to tighten her obviously tenuous hold on her man?
It could be I’m being less than generous, she conceded guiltily, swirling the dregs of her drink around in her cup. I’m certainly not jealous, she told herself firmly. This man is a monster and any woman fool enough to marry him deserves sympathy and probably therapy too. She must be unhinged.
‘I’m sure she was marvellous. She might even have suggested the solution herself.’ Adam viewed Anna’s innocent smile with an expression of deep suspicion. ‘Personally I wouldn’t be flattered if a man asked me to marry him simply to be a mother to his children.’
‘I seriously doubt if you’ll ever find yourself in that situation.’
‘Does she know you still feel inclined to grope stray females?’ Anna asked, her temper climbing to smouldering point as she swallowed his contemptuous observation.
‘You remind me of a stray cat. There’s something very…feline about you,’ he said slowly, his eyes running over her slender form, apparently losing his thread of thought. As if suddenly aware of his abstraction, he visibly stiffened, his expression hardening into a heavy frown. ‘I admit I forgot myself for a brief moment, but then I’ve not had long to learn how engaged people act.’
‘Isn’t three years long enough?’ Anna failed miserably to call a halt to this stream of morbid curiosity concerning
his personal life. Nothing she’d heard had given her any pleasure. It was a perversely masochistic pursuit.
‘I said, Anna, that Jessica and I had had a relationship for three years. I didn’t say that relationship gave either of us exclusive rights.’
‘You sleep around!’ she accused, for some reason feeling irrationally angry.
‘I’m not promiscuous, if that’s what this little outburst of moral outrage is meant to imply.’
‘You didn’t
mind
if she slept with other men?’ Anna asked incredulously. This was an attitude she found extremely baffling. She didn’t think she was unusually possessive, but exclusivity was essential in her mind to any serious relationship.
‘Jessica is far too tactful ever to raise the subject, and I have never enquired.’
Anna gave a choked sound of disgust. ‘Very civilised!’
‘I’d have thought a free spirit like you would have appreciated such an arrangement.’
‘Then you thought wrong!’ she cried. ‘If I found a man I loved had been unfaithful I wouldn’t tactfully avoid the subject… I’d… I’d…’
Adam watched with an expression of reluctant fascination as she rose to her feet. Her fists were clenched at her sides and her vivid face was a mask of passion. Her dramatically heaving bosom was hard to ignore.
‘Having seen a sample of your self-defence techniques, I can well imagine what you’d do.’ He slanted her a wry look. ‘I’d never have tagged you as the possessive type.’
‘If I was prepared to give myself unconditionally to someone I’d expect the same in return. I hate cheats…’
‘Unconditionally…?’
The husky speculation in his voice and the shrewd gleam of interest in his eyes made her sink back onto her packing case. She wished fervently that she had
picked anyone but this man to make such a revealing comment to.
‘Let’s just say you and I have a very different attitude to love and marriage.’ She tried to defuse the tension between them with a casual, dismissive tone. She didn’t want to touch on subjects important to her with this man who would no doubt find her impractical dream of a marriage of minds and souls amusing. His blatantly practical reason for marrying was repellent to her.
His eyes fastened onto her restless fingers plucking at the hem of his shirt, and she forced herself to lay her hands primly in her lap.
‘You think the sort of passion you appear to fantasise about would stand the test of time?’ He shook his head and smiled cynically. ‘Lust, whilst it can be satisfying in the short term, is not much of a basis for marriage. Respect and mutual interests are a much more solid foundation.’
‘I pity Jessica if all she wants from you is respect.’
‘It makes more sense than basing a lifetime commitment on a purely chemical reaction,’ he responded, stung by her observation. ‘I mean, look at you and me…we both wanted to rip off each other’s clothes the instant we met, but I’d sooner spend my days with a tornado. You’re about as peaceful as a whirling dervish.’
‘At least I’m not
boring
!’ she replied pointedly.
His casual comment on chemical reactions had made her colour, but she was honest enough to bite back any more scornful comments because, whilst his assessment was crude, it was also basically true.
I was going to avoid Adam like the plague, but what did I do when the opportunity presented itself? she asked herself bitterly. Did I run in the opposite direction?
No. Like some idiot with lemming tendencies she’d managed to end up scantily clad and in an intimate situation with Adam Deacon. The full danger of her present
situation was suddenly very apparent. She swallowed the constriction in her throat.
‘Meaning?’
he said, with a dangerous inflection in his voice and an equally daunting smile on his lips.
‘
Meaning
, you give a whole new meaning to the term “stuffed shirt”,’ she explained helpfully. ‘How old are you? Thirty-five, six? You talk as if you’ve mapped your life out with all the passion of a computer program.’ Her lack of sympathy shone in her eyes as she warmed to her theme.
‘I’m sure your motives are well intentioned. But if your brother’s children have been brought up in a normal, loving environment they’re not for one minute going to be fooled by neat arrangements.’ Her eyes were drawn to the childish paintings pinned against the peeling plaster. ‘Did they do those?’
Adam followed the line of her gaze. ‘Sam and Nathan did them,’ he confirmed, his voice softening as he mentioned the children. ‘They’re the youngest—three.’
‘Twins?’
Adam nodded. ‘The colours are an improvement. Until recently,’ he said bleakly, ‘they used black. They still have the most terrible nightmares. As things stand my mother is taking the brunt of it.’ His brooding contemplation shifted to Anna’s face. ‘They need stability.’
‘To imagine you can create security by taking a wife and moving to the country is pathetic. It takes more than an Aga and a pine dresser to give stability,’ she said earnestly. Compassion for him—them—made her chest tight with suppressed emotion. ‘Marriage shouldn’t be a tiresome necessity, Adam.’ It was warmth, sharing, and most importantly love. It was what her parents had in abundance and it was what she wanted one day.
‘Wake up to the real world, Anna. You’re used to getting what you want, but it doesn’t work that way. In the
real
world people compromise unless they’re terminally selfish.’
‘Then maybe I’m selfish because I’m not prepared to compromise. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand reality.’ She could have told him all about dashed hopes and unfulfilled dreams. ‘It’s you who has a problem with that. What you’re going to do isn’t
real
!’ she said earnestly. ‘It’s all a fake, a lie. You can’t make a home the same way they construct a film set. Mr Consultant, in your nice designer suit, don’t you ever follow your instincts?’ she cried scornfully. What a waste, what an awful waste, she thought miserably. I hate waste.
‘It’s as well for you I don’t follow my instincts,’ he thundered. His eyes were smouldering and his chest rose erratically in tune with his laboured inhalations. His long, clever, sensitive fingers curled into white-knuckled fists.
‘What if I’m willing to take the chance?’ Where had that come from? she wondered, clamping her jaw shut over any further inflammatory gems that might escape her trembling lips. The lines of stress in his chiselled features, not to mention the sinewed tautness in his neck, all betrayed the fact that Adam was close to his limit of endurance.
‘Cancel that,’ she babbled, making a negative gesture with her hands. ‘I didn’t say it.’
‘I can’t oblige with selective amnesia. I heard you quite distinctly.’ His voice had a strained, rasping quality. Reckless was the only word she could think of to describe the glow in his half-closed eyes as he contemplated her unblinkingly.
She gave a shaky laugh, trying unsuccessfully to read his intentions. Hadn’t she moments before been accusing him of being hidebound by convention, and boring? At that precise moment he looked anything but; he looked unpredictable and dangerous.
The predatory curl of his sensual lips made her already tight stomach muscles clench painfully. She licked the outline of her dry lips and tried to hide her growing
sense of nervous anticipation. She tried hopelessly to catch a glimpse of the urbanity she’d poured scorn on.
‘I’m renowned for saying stupid things.’
‘But you mean them,’ he accused, using the same tactics she frequently employed to disarm him.
Trapped by his astute assessment, she stared back at him, feeling as helpless as a moth drawn to a flame. As soon as this hackneyed analogy entered her head she felt angry. It implied she was helpless when all she had to do was get up and walk away. Alas, communications between her limbs and her brain seemed blocked; she stayed immobile.
‘Come here, Anna.’ The low, husky command made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end.
Only a fool would respond to this imperative. Why am I doing this? she wondered as she walked steadily towards him.
Adam didn’t look surprised by her meek response. His eyes flared with primitive satisfaction as they ran over the length of her slender figure. She was poised before him like a wild creature, not quite sure whether to flee or not.
He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder, allowing his fingers to follow the curve of her arm. It was a light, impersonal touch that made her tremble. He was trembling too. He registered this amazing fact subconsciously as he laid his hands on her shoulders and exerted enough pressure to bring her down onto her knees before him. Sheer, primitive lust obliterated the last vestiges of rational thought from his mind.
Slowly brushing the short, silky strands of hair from her cheek, he took her small face between his hands. For what seemed like a lifetime he looked into the vivid, finely boned face tilted up to him.
Anna concentrated on breathing; it was suddenly a laborious and difficult process. Her heart thundered against her breast so loudly, she knew he must hear it.
‘What if my instinct tells me to do this…? And this…?’ He punctuated his words with a series of shocking, open-mouthed kisses, slow, searching and devastating. His tongue burrowed into the warm sweetness of her mouth and a ragged groan vibrated in the depths of his chest.
‘You’re the most bewitching piece of perfection I’ve ever come across,’ he rasped as her throat arched to invite the attention of his mouth. His hands supported her head, which fell back bonelessly.
The primitive sound as her hands came up flat to rest against his hard belly made her shudder. His skin’s warmth, penetrating the thin fabric beneath her fingertips, brought her back to a vague and dizzying sense of reality. Hazily she opened her heavy eyes and found them instantly clashing with his.
‘I can’t do this,’ she gasped rawly. Every nerveending in her body was screaming in opposition. She was drowning in the taste of him on her lips, the masculine scent of him in her nostrils, the warm touch of his firm, smooth skin under her fingers.