The Marriage Pact

‘The reason I’m so anxious to get back to Melbourne...’ She swallowed, sure that he’d withdraw his offer the moment he heard it.

‘You have...an attachment back in Melbourne?’ he assisted delicately. ‘A lover waiting for you?’

She recoiled. ‘I certainly do not!’ A spark of contempt turned the grey of her eyes to pure silver. ‘I have no...attachments, as you call them.’ Her tone was icy. ‘And I don’t intend to.’ She drew in a breath. ‘Ever again.’

Rather than looking shocked or surprised—or uttering the usual platitudes about possibly meeting someone else one day and changing her mind—his mouth twisted, almost in approval. Or...empathy? ‘You’re through with love and all that stuff, are you?’ he asked, looking more curious than concerned.

Her gaze fluttered away. ‘I can live without another man in my life... yes.’

Nigel’s betrayal, and the misery Ralph Bannister was putting her sister through, had been more than enough to make her vow never to get emotionally involved with any man ever again. Least of all with an Englishman. Love left you weak and vulnerable—at the mercy of your emotions. She never intended to lose control of her life and emotions the way poor Sally had lost control of hers. She’d come close to it with Nigel, and she didn’t intend to come close ever again.

He didn’t press her. ‘So if it’s not a man, why are you so anxious to get home?’

She sighed. ‘It’s...my sister.’

‘Your sister?’ Now he did look surprised.

‘My sister isn’t well. She’s pregnant. She’s been so sick she’s had to give up her work...as a model. And—and her husband isn’t any help. Financially or in any other way.’

Now that she’d started, the rest tumbled out. ‘Ralph—her husband—has no job. He gets involved in wild schemes that come to nothing. When he does make some money—usually with a win at the casino, or the races—he gambles it away again so they’re always struggling to pay off their debts. And—and now he’s actually urging her to get rid of the baby! It—it’s so unfair. All Sally’s ever wanted is a normal, happy home life. A husband, a home and babies. The poor thing’s at her wit’s end.’

She flushed as she stopped for breath, sure he must be regretting now that he’d ever offered her a job.

‘And you feel responsible for her?’ Rather than trying to back off, he actually leaned forward. ‘What about the rest of your family? Your parents? Other members of the family?’

‘There’s only Sally and me.’ She gulped, finding the dark, quizzical gaze disconcerting. To avoid it she concentrated on his mouth instead, her eyes tracing the firm sensual outline of his lips. Another mistake!

She let her gaze veer away altogether and reached for her coffee—even though the cup was already empty.

‘No one else?’ he pressed.

She snatched in a quick breath. ‘No. Our mother died when Sally was only three—I was eight—and our grandmother helped Dad bring us up. But Gran died before Sally was ten, and our father died while Sally was in her last year at school...I was at university. So I’ve really been a mother to Sally for most of her life—and I’ve had sole responsibility for her since Dad died.’

‘And you still feel responsible for her, even now that she’s married?’

She heaved a deep quivering sigh. ‘I’ve tried not to interfere but it’s been hard not to when I’ve seen what her husband’s been doing to her. He swept into her life like some shining knight and offered to lay the world at her feet. He had money then—a big win at the casino, I suppose—but. in fact—’

She stopped, sucking in a fraught breath. What was she doing, pouring out her troubles—worse, her sister’s private problems—to a man who for all she knew might be no better than Ralph or Nigel?

But—her chin came up—there was one big difference. This man was offering her the chance to get back to Australia within the next couple of days, and he was offering her a well-paid job once she was back in Victoria for at least three months. She’d be crazy to throw an offer like that back in his face.

‘I...I’ll need a couple of days in Melbourne first with my sister,’ she told him, wanting to be honest with him, even if it meant waving goodbye to a free flight home. ‘I want to make sure she’s all right...and do what I can to help her get back on her feet.’ She looked up at him expectantly. Hopefully.

‘Not a problem. I’ll be spending two or three days in Melbourne myself before this wedding I have to go to. I want to check up on the information technology centre I set up in Melbourne last year. It’s being run by Australians—very successfully. I’m in electronics,’ he explained, ‘with my brother, Luke, who’s based in London. Our business has been profitable enough to help finance our farming interests. So, Claire...’

His eyes were darkly persuasive as they caught and pinned hers. ‘Would three days in Melbourne be sufficient for you to sort things out with your sister? And remember, this property you’ll be going to—Yangalla—will only be a phone call away from her and less than three hours away from Melbourne by car. It’s not as if you’ll be going to the remote Outback.’

She drew in a deep, lung-filling breath. Was she crazy to be even considering working for this man? This dangerously sexy, cocksure, breathtakingly persistent Englishman? And how would his ‘over-active’ son take to her? Or she to him?

There was only one way to find out.

“I’m sure three days would give me ample time with my sister,’ she said primly. Sally might even tell her to go off and mind her own business after the very first day. She’d done it before.

Or Ralph might. He must have a fair idea of what she thought of him—she’d hardly been able to hide it.

‘So...you’ll take the job?’ Adam asked before she could spell out her rules and conditions. He was already sitting back—oh, so sure of himself—with his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his hip-hugging jeans, his long legs sprawled loosely in front of him under the table and his great feet almost tangling with her own.

She made him wait a full three seconds. ‘I’m prepared to meet your son,’ she said cautiously. ‘And your mother.’ To make sure they actually exist, her eyes told him. ‘I’ll give you my final answer then.’

‘Fair enough.’ He flashed his megawatt smile. ‘Great.’

CHAPTER THREE

ENCHANTING as Venice was, Claire wasn’t disappointed to see it receding into the misty distance as the water taxi sped away across the lagoon towards the airport. Venice was for lovers, for romance, for people with leisure time... none of which had a place in Claire Malone’s life any more.

She flew back to London in unexpected comfort. Adam Tate had managed somehow to have her upgraded to Club Class—into the seat beside his. With his confident bearing and dark good looks—and with money and power no doubt playing a part—he would get his way in most things, she suspected.

He’d managed to talk her into working for him, hadn’t he? With the offer of a free flight home and a job for three months if she agreed...

She thought of Hugo Dann, who’d offered her a similar deal—a temporary job and a free flight home, which had come to nothing—and her eyes clouded. I won’t believe it until I’m actually on a plane back to Australia.

They took a taxi from the airport to Adam’s town house in Mayfair, stopping briefly on the way to pick up her few remaining belongings which she’d stored at a youth hostel in Earl’s Court. She’d already told him that she’d given up her lodgings in London, and he’d invited her to stay at his house, assuring her that there was plenty of room and that it would give her a better chance to get to know his mother and Jamie.

She hadn’t actually committed herself to staying the night. Or even to staying more than five minutes. She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of exactly. That she would find, once inside his front door, that his mother and son were sheer fabrications? That he had bars on all the windows and locks on all the doors?

She stifled a nervous giggle.

‘You said something?’ Adam turned to her.

She jumped at the sound of his voice, sobering in an instant. Glancing round, she became aware—acutely aware—that he’d shifted closer and that his thigh was now brushing against hers.

‘No.’ She gulped, her entire body going rigid. ‘I was just... thinking.’

‘I know. You’ve been so deep in thought I didn’t want to disturb you. Is it the thought of being with your sister again? Or the thought of taking on a strange little boy whom I’ve already admitted is a handful... and having to live on a sheep farm for the next few months?’

She swallowed again, not wanting to admit that she’d been thinking of him—that her thoughts over the past few minutes hadn’t even touched on his son or her sister or what lay ahead back in Australia.

‘A bit of both,’ she lied. And shot a question back at him. ‘You’re looking forward to seeing your son again?’

‘Naturally. Very much.’ He answered without hesitation, and yet...his face, his eyes, lacked the tender, loving spark—the proud glow—she would have expected from a doting father. Was he just clever at hiding his feelings... or had he no deep feelings for his son?

She heard herself asking curiously, ‘Did Jamie go with you to Australia last year when you bought your sheep station and set up your business in Melbourne?’

He gave a curt shake of his head. ‘He stayed with my mother. It was best. I was on the go the whole time. And he was barely eighteen months old at the time.’ There was something in his tone now, a guardedness in his eyes, that warned her not to pursue the subject.

But if she were to take care of Jamie she would have to know more about both child and father, and particularly about Adam’s relationship with his son. She moistened her lips, and forced out another question.

‘How old was your son when...his mother died?’