The Determined Husband

‘Well, you were wrong.’ Then helplessly she said, ‘I can’t understand what makes you think such a thing.’

‘Forgive me if I point out that it didn’t take you long to ditch me when someone with plenty of money came along.’

‘I did nothing of the kind,’ she denied angrily, and wondered how he could possibly blame her for the break-up. ‘I’ve told you, I don’t care about money.’

‘Despite that assurance I can’t help but believe things might have been different if I’d had any to spend on you.’

Gritting her teeth, she made to brush past him and walk on.

Keir turned and kept pace with her. ‘I guess we just met at the wrong moment. When I moved into that apartment Downtown, falling in love was the last thing on my mind…’

No matter what he said now, she knew he had never loved her.

‘I simply couldn’t afford to fall in love. I had neither the time nor the money to spare. But fate plays funny tricks.’

Looking straight ahead, she kept walking.

Glancing at her pale, set face, he went on, ‘I’d certainly never expected to bump into the woman of my dreams in a run-down apartment house…’

Sera’s stride faltered as memories rushed in to swamp her…

Brand-new to the States, she had been living in a single room on the top floor of an old Brownstone in Lower Manhattan, when one warm evening in late spring they had bumped into one another.

Literally.

Head bent and deep in thought, she had been making her way up the stairs, a brown paper carrier full of shopping clutched to her chest. At the same time a man had been coming down the next steep, uncarpeted flight of steps two at a time.

They reached the landing at the same instant, and a glancing blow from his shoulder made her drop her shopping and stagger back.

With great presence of mind he flung his arms around her to save her falling backwards, while various cartons and packages and a selection of fruit rolled and bounced gleefully down the steps.

Sera was five feet seven, but the man holding her was a good six feet and wide-shouldered. His beautiful, thickly lashed eyes were dark blue, his hair black, and with a tendency to curl.

He was dressed nicely, if casually, in stone-coloured jeans and an open-necked shirt. Lean-hipped, and carrying not an ounce of surplus weight, he looked like an athlete.

Tilting back her head, she focused on a tough, hard-boned face, with a cleft chin and a mouth that made butterflies dance in her stomach, and was suddenly breathless.

His dark eyes studied her flawless, heart-shaped face as he asked, ‘Are you all right?’ His voice was low-pitched and attractively husky.

Flustered, as much by his powerful sex appeal as by the narrowness of her escape, she answered a shade jerkily, ‘Yes, thanks to you.’

His white smile set her pulses racing and she found herself unable to take her eyes off that chiselled mouth.

‘Considering that I’m the one who almost knocked you flying in the first place, that’s a nice, forgiving sort of way of looking at it.’

Tearing her gaze away, she told herself crossly that, though she was a level-headed twenty-three-year-old, she was acting like some gauche schoolgirl.

Doing her best to sound casual, to hide the effect his nearness had on her, she managed lightly, ‘I’m a nice, forgiving sort of person. And, to be honest, it was partly my fault.’

‘Honest as well as forgiving,’ he mocked gently. ‘A woman in a million.’ Before she could think of a suitable rejoinder, he added, ‘And undeniably English.’

With unconscious pride, she told him, ‘I’m half American…’

A level black brow was raised in surprise. ‘I wouldn’t have guessed.’

‘Though I’d never been to the States until I got this chance to spend a year in the Wall Street branch of the company I work for.’

‘Which is?’

‘Anglo American Finance.’

‘I know them,’ he said at once. ‘In fact, I’ve had business dealings with Martin Rothwell, the man who virtually owns Anglo American… What do you actually do?’

‘I’m PA to Cheryl Rothwell, Mr Rothwell’s sister. I met her when she came over to the London office and, after she discovered I was half American, she offered me this opportunity.’

‘I see. So, which of your parents came from the States?’

‘My mother. She was born in Boston.’

‘Now, there’s a coincidence! So was mine.’

‘Oh… Then you are American? I couldn’t be sure from your accent.’

‘That’s probably because, like yourself, I’m half American and half English. I was born and brought up in New York, but educated at Oxford.

‘My paternal grandfather lives there, though our family originally came from Caithness.’

Just as he finished speaking, an orange, which had been balanced precariously on the edge of the top step, rolled off with a thump.

Glancing down, he said, ‘Though it’s much more fun standing here and holding you, I’d best rescue the shopping before it all ends up in the hall.’

As, bemused, she watched him deftly gather together the straying fruit and groceries, she knew that something special and momentous had happened to her.

Returning everything to the brown paper carrier, he remarked, ‘Not a great deal of damage done, except to the eggs. They’ll never be the same again.’

He looked ruefully at the damp, mangled package and added, ‘I hope you weren’t intending to have them for supper tonight?’

‘I was as a matter of fact.’

His eyes on her left hand, which was bare of rings, he queried, ‘Were you planning to eat alone?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted.

He clicked his tongue. ‘On a Friday night, with the weekend just beginning?’

A shade defensively, she explained, ‘I’ve only been in New York for a few days. I haven’t had a chance to make friends.’

Though most people liked her, her natural shyness compounded by her upbringing, meant that she had never found it very easy to make friends.