The Millionaire's Marriage Claim

‘Nevertheless, you have it right. I do intend to hold you hostage, sweetheart, so I hope you mean something to whoever you’re working for, otherwise things could be a little nasty for you.’ He stood up. ‘Care for some soup? Or there’s baked beans, uh, tinned spaghetti—’

Jo went to slap his face, only to end up pinned in his arms.

‘Now, now, Lady Longlegs,’ he said softly. ‘You may be pretty athletic, but you’re no match for me.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

‘I’ll call you what I like. I’m the man with the gun, remember?’

Jo shivered.

He felt it through her clothes and it crossed his mind again that, in different circumstances, Jo Lucas was his kind of woman—tall, with lovely, clean lines and some fascinating curves. As for her face, perhaps not a face to look twice at in the first instance, he thought, but once you did, it held the eye.

Her skin was smooth and creamy, but her lashes and eyebrows were darker than her hair and they framed her grey eyes admirably. Her nose was straight, her mouth was actually fascinating with a slightly swollen bee-stung upper lip that excited a rash impulse to kiss it he had to kill rather swiftly…

And the whole was completely natural, no trace of make-up, no plucking of her eyebrows into coy arches and, he glanced down at her hands, no painted nails.

So what does that all tell me? he wondered. She’s a practical, serious-minded person but rather unexpectedly lovely in her own quiet way?

He chewed his lip and stilled the sudden movement she made to free herself and again their gazes clashed. He smiled inwardly at the proud expression in her grey eyes that told him she was hating every moment of being confined in his arms against her will.

If looks could kill, I should be six feet under, he reflected wryly. I wonder how she reacts to being made love to? Soberly or…

He paused his thoughts with an ironic lifting of his eyebrows, and she blinked in sudden confusion as if she’d been trying to read his mind, and failed.

Just as well, he mused with a certain humour, and attempted to direct his thoughts into a more businesslike channel, only to find himself speculating on how she’d got roped into this diabolical situation.

She was bound to be someone’s lover, surely? Brought in on a tide of passion, perhaps—but no, it just didn’t seem to fit her. Neither did she look venal, although it was hard to tell with women. But what was left? A grudge? What the hell could she, personally, have against him? A grudge against society, then, or…

That was when he paused to ask himself if there could be some mistake?

But how about all those coincidences? Too many to be believable? Yes. On the other hand, she appeared to have no suspicious equipment, no equipment at all other than a useless mobile phone. But did that preclude her from simply driving a back-up vehicle? It did not and he couldn’t afford to take any chances anyway.

He let her go abruptly.

‘I’ve had a thought,’ she said quietly. ‘While you’re holding me hostage here, the real Joe, if there is such a person, is probably making his way to the homestead as we speak.’

His eyes narrowed again. ‘Time will tell, lady.’

‘Who are you?’ It came out unwittingly and she bit her lip but, once said, she decided to persevere. ‘At least tell me what’s going on. Surely, as a hostage, I’m entitled to know what I’ve got myself into?’

Several expressions chased across his eyes—did she imagine it or was one of them a trace of perplexity? If so, it was immediately replaced with bland insolence.

‘Got yourself into?’ he repeated. ‘A bed of your own making, I would imagine, Jo. In the meantime, I don’t know about you, but it’s going to be baked beans and biscuits for me.’

Two hours later, the hut was quiet and dim.

Jo had eaten a few spoonfuls of baked beans, she’d attended to a call of nature in the rough outhouse attached to the hut, and been attended in turn by her captor. When she’d finished, they’d both stood outside for a short time, listening and trying to probe the dense, chill darkness for any sign of life, but there had been none.

In Jo’s case, she’d also been trying to get her bearings just in case an opportunity to escape came up.

Then he’d shepherded her inside and told her to go to sleep.

The beds were along the walls at right angles to each other, their thin grey and white ticking mattresses unadorned by sheets, although each bed had one dismal-looking pillow and one hairy-looking blanket.

She took her anorak off again and her boots, and prepared to lie down, but he stopped her suddenly.

‘Get your night gear on,’ he ordered.

‘What for?’

‘You are going to bed.’

She gestured contemptuously. ‘You call this a bed?’

‘It’s all there is.’

‘Perhaps, but I’d feel much happier in my clothes. There could be fleas, there could be ticks, there could be—anything.’

‘All the same, Jo, I’d rather you got into your PJs. I’ll get them for you.’ He picked up her bag.

‘No—hang on!’ she protested with her hands planted on her hips. ‘If you think I’m going to afford you some kind of a peep show, if that’s why you want me to change into pyjamas, you’re mistaken, Dick!’

He raised a lazy eyebrow and scanned her from head to toe. Her hands-on-hips posture and her straight back made the jut of her breasts particularly enticing beneath the fine pale blue wool of her jumper.

‘What a pleasant thought,’ he said softly, eyeing the outline of her nipples and the narrowness of her waist. ‘But—’ his lips twitched as she looked downwards and hastily amended her stance ‘—sadly, it wasn’t what I had in mind. I fully intended to step outside while you changed.’

‘So why…what…?’ She stared at him in confusion.

‘It’s simple, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’re much less likely to be running around the countryside in your nightwear, should you devise some devilish plan of escape. Apart from anything else—’ he smiled at her with pure devilry ‘—you’d freeze. Don’t be long,’ he added. ‘I’m not too happy about freezing either.’ He stepped outside.

Jo unclenched her jaw and said every swear word she could think of beneath her breath. But there was nothing for it other than to retrieve the least revealing of the two pairs of pyjamas she’d packed, and change into them.

‘Decent?’ he called.

‘Yes.’

‘Decent and—mad,’ he murmured as he came in, closed the door behind him and rearranged the blanket. ‘Mmm.’ He scanned her from head to toe. ‘I see you kept your bra on. Not much protection against—anything, I would have thought.’

Jo looked down at her pyjamas. In a fine white cotton, with bands of filigree embroidery, her bra was visible beneath the top, but the alternative had been a pair of short, sleeveless pyjamas in a sensuous lilac satin.

She raised her gaze to his face. ‘I’ll get even with you one day for all this if it’s the last thing I do.’

‘Should be interesting. Go to bed, Jo.’

‘What…what are you going to do?’

‘Wait and watch, what else?’