A Scandalous Engagement

‘Of course. Doing what?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She couldn’t believe her ears. The man’s rudeness defied description.

‘I only ask because I’ve been here before. A few times, actually, and the house has been empty.’

‘Why would a plumber come to an empty house?’

‘Contract.’ He shrugged eloquently, as though that single word explained a host of things.

Jade groped her way to further enlightenment. ‘Oh, I get it. You come every so often to check up on the place and make sure that everything’s running smoothly?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I’m surprised Andy didn’t recognise your name in the book, in that case,’ she mused aloud, filling the kettle with water and plugging it in.

‘We plumbers. A forgetful lot.’ He raised his eyebrows expressively, and somewhere in the depths of her head she realised that he was laughing at her.

‘Yes. Quite. How do you take your coffee?’

‘Black, one sugar. So…’ He strolled around the kitchen and finally, as she had known he would, ambled over to the kitchen table, where he looked with interest at the drawings spread across the wooden surface. From the other end of the room, Jade watched him with a growing feeling of antagonism.

‘Have a seat, Mr Wilkins,’ she said tightly, ‘and then perhaps we could discuss the matter at hand?’

‘Draw, do you?’

‘That’s right, and I really haven’t got the time for chit-chat.’ How much more blatant did she have to be? She filled their mugs with boiling water, wondered whether it was too late to call in another firm to have a look at the leak, and then stood stock still as he held up one of her sketches to the light and began inspecting it.

‘You do this professionally, do you?’ he asked, depositing the sheet of paper and replacing it with another, which he held up and inspected with the same thorough eye.

‘I’m an art student, as a matter of fact,’ Jade told him icily. She dumped his mug of coffee on the counter, directed him to it, and then took the opportunity to stack away some of her work, aware of him looking at her as she did so, leaning against the counter, utterly at ease.

‘You’re an art student. Yes, I see.’

‘And what precisely do you see, Mr Wilkins? A way to fixing our leak, I hope.’

‘Oh, yes, that shouldn’t be a big job.’

‘I thought you said that it was serious.’

‘Did I?’

Jade’s teeth snapped together in frustration.

‘You know you did.’

‘How on earth does an art student come to be living in a house like this?’ he asked, deftly avoiding all discussion of what he had come to do.

‘I happen to share the place with a friend, as a matter of fact. Now, when can you send someone along to fix this leak?’

‘What makes you think that I won’t be the one to come and fix it myself?’

‘Because of your nails, aside from anything else.’

‘My nails?’ He looked puzzled for a few seconds, then he laughed. It was a distinctive laugh. Deep and sexy, with enough wickedness in it to turn grannies into simpering adolescents. ‘Ah, yes. Not dirty enough?’

‘Put it this way, Mr Wilkins, you don’t strike me as the sort of man who’s ever changed a car tyre in his life, never mind peered into the innards of a drainpipe. Now, why don’t we stop beating around the bush. Just tell me whom I can expect, when, and how much you intend to charge for your services.’

She wondered why she hadn’t seen through his ploy before. Wasn’t it as plain as the nose on her face? Mr Heart-Stopping Big Boss makes initial appearance, charms lady of the house into winning a job which inevitably would be much smaller than he makes out, then sends his troops in with outsized invoice in hand. Probably ran a very thriving business indeed. No wonder he could afford to dress the way he did.

Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in the running for good looks and cheap charm. She had never been tempted by handsome men with a sweet tongue. No, that had been her sister’s domain.

She felt the familiar pain rush into her and rested her head momentarily against the palm of her hand. When she regained her composure, it was to find the man looking at her with sudden concern.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’ She didn’t feel fine. She felt sick, just as she always did whenever she thought of Caroline. ‘Just a passing headache,’ she said shakily. ‘Must be all that detailed work I’ve been doing recently.’

‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

The remark was so accurate that Jade stared at him open-mouthed, then she blinked and shook her head. Yes, she had seen a ghost in a manner of speaking. A little over two years and the image of her sister still haunted her. All that promise sucked away at the age of twenty-four. She had a sudden, overwhelming temptation to bare her soul to this complete stranger sitting opposite her, frowning now, and she had to bite it back.

Yes, her counsellor had said that she couldn’t hold on to the past for ever; yes, she had said that she should learn to talk to people about how she felt, to cherish the life that she had known instead of allowing it to ruin her own life. But she was in a bad way if that meant pouring her heart out to a con man whom she had spoken with for all of an hour. If that.

‘I think it’s time you left,’ she said, making a halfhearted attempt to rise to her feet and then sinking back to the stabilising comfort of the kitchen chair. ‘I…Andy will telephone you later to sort out…everything.’

‘You’re beginning to worry me, Miss Summers.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Perhaps I should get you upstairs.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She was feeling faint again. In an effort to dispel his unwanted concern, she stood up and felt herself sway, then, before she knew it, he had moved swiftly around the table and lifted her off her feet.

‘What are you doing! Put me down this instant.’

‘Forget it. I’m not going to be responsible for leaving you in this house. What if you collapse the minute I leave?’

‘I don’t intend to do any such thing! Put me down!’ This was a nightmare. One minute she was contentedly working away at the kitchen table; the next minute she was being carried upstairs by the local plumber, who apparently thought that she was ill and needed immediate rescue! It was farcical! She continued to demand instant release until he got to the top of the stairs, then she gave up. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and determined to do his hero bit. Well, let him.

He began heading towards Andy’s room and she feebly told him that he was going in the wrong direction.

‘I thought your bedroom was down there, leaking from the seams,’ he said.

‘No. Mine’s in the other direction, second from the right.’ She could smell him through his shirt, feel the hardness of his chest against her cheek. Everything about him was unashamedly masculine, she thought, from his powerful, well-built body to the way he smelled. She couldn’t wait to get away from the experience.

‘I do apologise,’ he said, without a hint of apology in his voice. ‘I must have misunderstood.’

‘I’m not interested in your misunderstandings, Mr Wilkins.’ Her bedroom door was getting closer and she breathed a sigh of relief. If Caroline were alive now, she would be grinning with merriment at the sight of her shy twin sister being manhandled by just the sort of hulk she had always made a point of avoiding. For the first time she felt a rush of affectionate memories for her sister without any of the accompanying loss and guilt.