The Marriage Pact

For heaven’s sake, the man was flirting with her! ‘Can on occasion co-exist,’ indeed! What a disgusting male chauvinist he was!

‘I wonder if the same can be said about you?’ she whipped back in a withering tone, her eyes flashing contempt. ‘Or are you just a pretty face?’

The deep brown eyes flickered. Then he smiled, a sudden stretching of his lips, showing a flash of even white teeth and a burst of crinkles and dimples where there’d only been a tanned smoothness before.

She felt an unexpected jolt. That quick smile had a megawatt impact.

Oh, no, you don’t, she thought, rallying. Your devastating English charm won’t work on this girl, my friend. I’m immune to the flashy charms of gorgeous-looking Englishmen. Give me a rugged, down-to-earth, honest, decent Aussie guy any day.

I should be so lucky, she mused with a grimace, doubting if honest, decent men existed anywhere any more.

‘Why are you here?’ she tossed back at him as she began to walk on, not caring if he answered or not. Not being interested in dancing-eyed charm machines. She just wanted to switch the spotlight off herself. Or, better still, shake him off altogether.

But in a single stride he was at her side.

Holly, mercifully, came to the rescue, piping up before he could speak, ‘I’m hungry.’ She tugged at Claire’s hand. ‘I want an ice cream.’

‘All right, love, we’ll find you an ice cream.’ Claire quickened her pace, expecting the Englishman to take the hint and fade away.

He didn’t. ‘Let me buy you an ice cream at Florian’s,’ he offered, and waved a hand toward the famous café as they passed by, the romantic strains of ‘Fly Me To The Moon’ swirling around them.

She didn’t falter, pretending that she hadn’t even heard the offer. There was no way in the world she was going to let this pushy Englishman buy anything for her—let alone try to buy her favours, if that was what he was doing. And Florian’s was way out of her own modest pocket.

‘There’s an ice-cream place at the back of the piazza,’ she said brusquely. Dismissively. ‘Come on, Holly.’ She almost swept the little girl off her feet as she hurried on, dragging the child along with her.

Maddeningly, the Englishman kept pace with them. ‘I’m here on business, unfortunately, not pleasure,’ he said in answer to her question—despite her having made it obvious that she didn’t care if he answered or not. ‘I’m here for a business seminar at the Cipriani...though I chose not to stay there. I prefer a hotel with a quieter, more personal touch—away from all the hype.’

That surprised her. She’d have thought he’d lap up that kind of place. The glitz, the glamour. Maybe, she mused cynically, he just wanted to be free of his fellow delegates so that he could more easily chat up solitary females.

‘You’re playing hookey this morning?’ she asked sweetly, slowing her pace as Holly whined, ‘You’re going too fast!’

‘Not at all.’ He fell into step beside her. ‘Morning off.’

‘Where are all your fellow delegates?’ she asked pointedly, glancing around. Hadn’t he made any friends amongst them? ‘More interested in the Cipriani’s glamorous social whirl, are they, than the cultural delights of Venice?’

‘I doubt that. They’re all at business sessions this morning. I’m not involved in those. I’m here to give a series of lectures on the effect of the Internet on worldwide communications. I’ll be giving my final one this afternoon.’

‘Oh.’ She deliberately looked at him the way he’d looked at her a few moments ago. ‘Well,’ she murmured, unable to resist the temptation, ‘Living proof that good looks and brains can co-exist...on occasion.’

His lips—sensuous, well-shaped lips, she noted reluctantly—stretched again, the outer edges curving upward and deepening the appealing creases in his cheeks.

‘Touché,’ he applauded softly, a gleam of amusement in the dark depths of his eyes.

Much as she wanted to dislike everything about him, Claire had to give him credit for appreciating the way she’d turned his chauvinistic remark back on him. Nigel probably would have taken umbrage and demanded huffily whether she was mocking him, his pale blue eyes wavering with hurt and uncertainty. Nigel had liked to feel in control at all times—on top of every situation.

‘Do your employers give you any time off...by yourself?’ the stranger pursued as they entered the narrow lane behind the piazza and began to weave their way through the throngs of other tourists, past windows with tempting displays of designer fashions, expensive knitwear, fine shoes and eye-catching jewellery. ‘In the evenings, I mean,’ he added smoothly, ‘when the children are asleep and their parents have no commitments themselves?’

In the evenings... I knew it, she thought as she seared a glance round. ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said crushingly. Even if they did, her eyes told him, I wouldn’t be spending my precious spare time with you.

‘You’re here in romantic Venice with no time at all to yourself? That’s criminal!’ Obviously he’d failed to read what her eyes were telling him. This man, she thought, has an ego to match his audacity!

‘I’m here to work. To mind children. It’s not a holiday,’ she snapped. ‘It’s not a holiday for my employers either. They’re here for a medical conference.’ She tossed her head, her short bob of silky brown hair swirling round her cheeks. ‘Even so, I’ve managed to see quite a bit of Venice already...’

‘Oh, yes?’ The roguish brown eyes mocked her. ‘What have you seen?’

‘More than you, most likely!’ she retorted. ‘This morning we took a look inside St Mark’s Basilica... we were among the first ones in the queue. We’ve been into the Doge’s Palace. We’ve been up the Grand Canal—more than once. We’ve shopped for souvenirs. We’ve watched the passing cruise ships from our hotel rooftop—where you get a breathtaking view of the Venice skyline at dusk. Last night we saw a magnificent sunset...’ That, she realised immediately, was a mistake.

‘How romantic,’ was his ironic comment. ‘Watching a Venetian sunset with a three-year-old. You should be watching romantic sunsets with a man, not with a child.’

‘Maybe I find young children better company than men,’ she bit back, thinking of Nigel. There had been a stunning sunset the night she’d caught him on the balcony of his flat with another woman.

‘You don’t like men? Or... just one man in particular?’ He seemed to find the idea diverting. ‘Bad experience?’ he probed delicately.

The droll note in his voice infuriated her for some reason. He sounded so smug. As if he’d never been on the receiving end of a woman’s scorn in his entire life! Well, here’s one woman who does hold you in contempt! And all good-looking Englishmen.

She was thinking not just of Nigel now, but of her handsome, silver-tongued brother-in-law back in Australia... Ralph Bannister, another Englishman, who’d burst into her sister’s life like a blazing comet and swept poor dazzled Sally off her feet... and who was now making her younger sister’s life pure hell.

She and Sally could sure pick their men!

‘Oh, I like men,’ she said levelly, looking him straight in the eye as she paused outside the ice-cream parlour. ‘It’s just smooth, good-looking Englishmen I don’t much care for. I’ve found them to be insufferably conceited and untrustworthy.’

Just as she was about to swing on her heel and stomp into the gelateria, she found her gaze caught for a fatal second, locked with his.

‘You have the most bewitching eyes,’ he murmured, the wicked glint in his own threatening to bewitch her in that paralysing second. ‘Smoky grey, fringed with black...’ The compelling eyes turned lethal. ‘Bedroom eyes.’

She jerked back to earth. Bedroom eyes! ‘That’s one place you’ll never see,’ she spat back. ‘My bedroom!’

‘How about...mine?’ He gave a wolfish smile.

She caught her breath in a hiss, her eyes shooting silver daggers at him. ‘In your dreams!’

The well-shaped lips twitched appreciatively. ‘Mmm...a woman who can stand up for herself... I like that.’

‘I want an ice cream!’ squawked Holly.

‘Yes, pet...it’s right here.’ With a final glare at the laughing-eyed Englishman, Claire turned her back on him and marched into the gelateria, bundling Holly in ahead of her. The baby, amazingly, was still fast asleep on her back.

Breathing heavily, her heart thudding against her ribs, she fought to compose herself. Oh, boy. She felt her cheeks glowing in swift shame. Outrageous as he’d been, she’d been appallingly rude to him first, calling him conceited and untrustworthy. It was completely unlike her.

The man had touched a raw spot. He was so like Nigel. A charming, good-looking, self-satisfied womaniser. But that didn’t excuse her rudeness. She ought to run after him and apologise.

He can take it, a more realistic voice asserted. It would take more than a few sharp remarks to prick that man’s armour of arrogance and conceit. No, he deserved it. She hadn’t invited him to approach her. He’d chatted her up.

Bedroom eyes, indeed! Men like him needed deflating.

She was stunned when she stepped out of the shop a few moments later and found him still there, lounging outside an exclusive menswear shop. Before she could swing away in the opposite direction he was at her side.

‘You must let me try to redeem the poor reputation we Englishmen seem to have in your eyes,’ he said with a smile that went a good way towards doing just that. Until she hardened her heart.