Contract Bridegroom

Jethro didn’t know about her money. And there was no way she could hurt him; she knew instinctively that he’d never let her close enough to do that.

She couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t.

Out of the question.

A spruce bough slapped Celia’s cheek. Her heart was racing in her breast in a way that had nothing to do with her precipitous descent of Gun Hill. She’d never been a coward before. Was she going to start now? Her father could be dead in three months, any chance of reconciliation gone. Is that what she wanted?

How far was she willing to go to set Ellis Scott’s mind to rest in the short time he had left? A long way, she thought. A very long way. Deep down she was still bitterly ashamed of their last horrific argument. At the age of nineteen, in her second year at Harvard, she’d discovered that her father had been having her watched; she was being followed by a bodyguard he’d hired. And she’d lost it.

She’d taken the first train home and confronted Ellis, and as though a lock had broken on her tongue, the pent-up feelings of years had poured out: her loneliness in those bleak months after her mother’s death, when her father had retreated from her in all the ways that mattered. Her resentment of his unceasing control of her actions, the nannies who’d forbidden her to climb trees, the directives to the schools banning her from the high-diving towers and the gymnastic equipment. Her fury when he’d refused to sponsor her for the junior slalom team when she was fourteen; too dangerous, he’d said.

Control, control, control.

She’d yelled at him, her fists clenched at her sides, tears streaming down her face. He hadn’t yelled back. She’d have preferred it if he had. In a cold, clipped voice he’d accused her of ingratitude and wanton rebellion; she was anything, he’d said, but her mother’s daughter. Which had been the unkindest cut of all.

He’d been cruel, certainly, that day eight years ago. But was that how she wanted to remember him?

It was all too easy to interpret his wish to see her married as yet another strand in that stifling over-protectiveness, as one more link in those manacles of control. Older now, perhaps a little wiser, Celia was finally prepared to consider the possibility that this was the only way Ellis knew how to say he loved her.

She loved him, too. Of course she did. Although it was a very long time since she’d told him so.

She could stand anything for three months, surely? Even a fake marriage whose sole intent was to relieve her father of a burden of anxiety he’d carried for years.

She bit her lip. Do it, Celia. Do it. Now.

Because there’s nobody else to ask. And you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t make peace with your father.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Jethro cannoned into her, his arms going round her in a reflex action, circling her waist. She twisted in his embrace and said with the bluntness of desperation, “Jethro, will you marry me?”

“What?”

For the first time since she’d met him, Celia saw she’d knocked Jethro off balance. He’d paled under his tan; his eyes were like twin blades of steel. She bit her lip. “Oh God, that’s not what I meant to say. At least, it is, but not—”

“Did you ask me to marry you?”

“Yes,” she gulped. “But it’s not what you think, it’s—”

“You don’t have any idea what I’m thinking,” he said with menacing softness. “Nor do you want to know.”

“I-I should have said I’ve got a proposal for you. A business proposal.”

“You’re just like the rest of them.”

His voice was as caustic as acid. “What do you mean?” she blurted.

“For a while I thought…but I should have known better. You saw the newspaper article, didn’t you, Celia? Of course you did. Although I’ll give you this—your tactics are different than most.”

“I don’t have any idea what—”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he exploded. “Quit pretending, will you? The game’s over.”

“If you’d keep quiet for a minute and listen, I’ll tell you what I’m—”

“The voice of an angel and a beauty that knocks me sideways—I thought I was too old to fall for that crap.”

“Jethro,” Celia said tautly, “stop looking at me like I’m some kind of disgusting squishy thing you’ve turned up under a rock. My proposal’s strictly business—do you hear me?”

Her voice had risen. “Yeah,” he drawled, “I hear you.”

She was still standing locked in his embrace, her palms flat to his T-shirt. He smelled faintly of sweat; he looked thoroughly dangerous and not at all business-like. The trouble was, she didn’t feel business-like, either. Not with his mouth only inches from hers, his lean, hard body pressed against hers. She said frantically, “Strictly business,” and struggled to keep her wits. “I need a husband for three months. A temporary marriage, that’s all, drawn up legally with a contract.”

“That’s all?” he repeated, with a depth of sarcasm that made her flinch.

“I’d pay you, Jethro. Quite a lot of money. You’d be able to put it toward another boat to replace Starspray.”

“You let me worry about Starspray,” he snarled. “You don’t know the first thing about me and you’re asking me to marry you? I take back what I said about your intelligence. You’re out to lunch, lady.”

Every nerve pulled tight, Celia gazed up at him. Beneath a formidable level of rage, he looked…was disappointed the right word? Ferociously disappointed, as though somehow she’d let him down. In a major way. She said defiantly, “I know quite a lot about you. You’re courageous—you rescued your friend, didn’t you? You’re an adventurer, with the guts and determination to climb the most challenging mountain in the world. You’ve got class. Tons of it. And up there on the mountain top when I said no, you backed off.” Suddenly she pushed away from him. “I’m doing this all wrong!”

“You finally got something right. Why three months, Celia? And where are you going to get the money to pay me? Rob a bank?”

The wind wafted a long strand of hair across her face. She pushed it back and said steadily, “My father’s a rich man. And two years ago I inherited my mother’s trust fund. Sixty thousand dollars, that’s what I’m prepared to pay you.”

The amount she named didn’t even make him blink. He pounced with the speed of a predator. “So why are you working for the Coast Guard if you’ve got that much money?”

“There are conditions to this marriage,” she said flatly. “One of which is a high degree of privacy.”

“Do tell me the others.”

She hated that note in his voice; it made her feel about ten years old. “No sex. No contact after the time’s up—you’d vanish from my life and you wouldn’t come back. Ever. And you’d sign a contract to that effect.”

“Charming,” Jethro said.

“It’s a business deal—I told you that! Not the romance of the century.”

“I get the message—I’m not totally devoid of brains. Although I must admit when I offered to help you as a way of thanking you for saving my life, marriage wasn’t what I had in mind.” He picked up a handful of her hair, running it through his fingers; in the afternoon sun it glinted like the most delicate copper wire. “No sex?” he repeated softly. “Are you sure about that?”

She pulled back, feeling the tug at her scalp, panic nibbling at her control. “No sex. That’s what I said.”

His hands dropped to his sides. “The answer’s no.”

“But—”

“I don’t give a damn how rich you are, I’m not into being bought.”

He meant it. The contempt in his face seemed to strip Celia naked, leaving her utterly defenceless and deeply ashamed. He loathed her, she thought numbly. Despised her for trying to buy him as though he were a stick of furniture. Oh God, why had she started this?

With a tiny whimper of distress, she whirled and ran down the slope, tears blurring her vision. What a fool she’d been! Why hadn’t she stopped to think? Isn’t that what had so often angered her father, that she acted before she thought, leaping before she looked?