Bridegrooms Required: One Bridegroom Required / One Wedding Required / One Husband Required

‘So, let me guess—you did something wild and untraditional?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘No, I didn’t, actually. Brides usually don’t want to be too wild and wacky. Most conform. In fact, I based the dress on an idea that my mother had.’ She saw his puzzled look. ‘She was a dress designer, too,’ she explained. ‘She created this most wonderful wedding dress when I was little—I’ve seen pictures of it.’

‘But if yours is almost the same as hers, isn’t that called copying—even stealing?’

She shook her head. ‘There’s no such thing as originality in fashion—you must know that. What goes around comes around. My design was very similar to my mother’s but it wasn’t exactly the same. Unfortunately, Mum’s dress was sold, and we never saw it again.’

Luke frowned. ‘Why would you expect to?’

‘Because she designed it for a very famous fashion house, and those types of garments don’t usually disappear without trace. They’re usually worth a lot of money.’

‘But this one did?’

Holly nodded. ‘Someone bought it in a sale. My mother was disappointed it was reduced in price, but not surprised—’ Her face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘It was a very unusual design, and only an exceptionally thin woman could have worn it. And that was that. Funnily enough, an older Irish woman who cleaned in the store where it was sold—she bought it. After that it disappeared into thin air.’

Luke was more interested in the things she didn’t say than in the things she did. ‘And where’s your mother now?’

‘Well, it’s November, so she’s probably in the Caribbean,’ replied Holly flippantly. ‘Either that, or on a cruise ship somewhere.’

The bitterness in her tone didn’t escape him. ‘And why isn’t she here—helping her daughter get settled into her brand-new business venture?’

‘Because her latest disgusting rich old husband probably won’t let her,’ grimaced Holly.

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ he queried softly.

She threw him a look, a nonchalant expression which had become second nature to her. At school she had quickly learnt that if you learned to mock yourself, then no one else would bother. ‘Doesn’t everyone have a mother who uses a man as a meal ticket?’

‘You must hate it,’ he observed slowly.

Holly shrugged. ‘I’m used to it—she’s used men all her life. But I’m not complaining—not really. Their money paid for my education, saw me through art school.’

‘And wasn’t there a father on the scene?’

‘No, I never knew my father—’ Holly met his curious stare with a proud uptilt to her chin, feeling oddly compelled to answer his questions. Maybe it was something to do with the penetrating clarity of his blue eyes. Or maybe it was just because he actually looked as though he cared.

She ran a finger down the cold beer bottle. ‘And no, I’m afraid that it’s nothing heroic like an early death—I mean it literally. My mother didn’t know him either. According to her, he could have been one of two people and she didn’t care for either of them—so she never bothered to tell either of them that she was pregnant.’

Luke expelled a slow breath of air ‘Hell,’ he said quietly, realising that he didn’t have the monopoly on unconventional childhoods.

‘I suppose I must be grateful that she saw fit to give birth to me.’ Her gaze was unblinking ‘Have I shocked you?’

‘A little,’ he admitted. ‘But that was part of your intention, wasn’t it, Holly—to shock me?’

She looked at up at him, her eyes partially shaded by thick dark lashes. ‘And why would I want to do that?’

‘Because illegitimacy hasn’t always been accepted the way it is now. When you were growing up, it was probably even a stigma—something to be ashamed of. Wasn’t it?’ he probed gently.

The memory of it was like a knife, twisting softly in her belly. Little girls taunting her in the playground. The sense of always being different. ‘Yes.’

Her reply was so quiet that he had to strain his ears to hear it. ‘So maybe you got used to relating the facts as starkly as possible—to pre-empt that kind of reaction. And if you said the worst possible things about not having a father, then that way no one could hurt you. Or judge you.’ He paused, and the piercing blue eyes were as direct as twin swords. ‘Am I right?’

She put her fork down quickly. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ He was very perceptive. Too perceptive. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,’ she said. ‘Just because you’ve been a Good Samaritan. I don’t normally open up to people I’ve only just met, you know.’

He smiled through the ache that had haunted him since he had first laid eyes on her. ‘Maybe it’s because we’re strangers. And because we’ve been thrown together in bizarre circumstances.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Like people trapped in lifts, or stuck on the side of a mountain—that sense of isolation makes the rest of the world seem unimportant. You break rules.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes you make new ones in their place.’

Holly badly needed to distract herself—wasn’t he aware that when he looked at her that way she just wanted him to kiss her? ‘I may have told you things about me,’ she corrected him. ‘But it hasn’t been very reciprocal. You’ve told me very little about you!’

‘There’s my inheritance,’ he said blandly. ‘You know about that.’

‘Oh, that!“ she scoffed. ’That’s boring! I want to hear about real life.‘ She tried an impersonation of his distinctive drawl. ’Life on the ranch!’

He laughed. It would be so easy to stay here, to bask in the firelight and the soft, green light of her eyes. Easy and dangerous...

‘It’s late and it’ll keep,’ he said, swallowing the last of his beer and wondering why it tasted so sour. ‘And if I tell you about cheetah kills before bedtime—then you might have nightmares, mightn’t you?’

‘I suppose so!’ She laughed nervously.

But then, Holly suspected that she might have trouble sleeping in any case. Because surely the thought of a big, virile man like Luke Goodwin sleeping in the same house would cause any normal woman to be restless.

Especially a woman whose green-eyed and naturally foxy appearance often gave people a totally misleading view of her true nature...

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_b4a71216-8d3b-56c7-b609-9dd34d4cb098)

DESPITE her reservations, Holly slept soundly and undisturbed in a beautiful high-ceilinged bedroom painted in palest blues and greys. It overlooked the rain-soaked lawn at the back of the house, which sloped down to a fruit orchard at the far end of the garden.

When she woke up it was almost nine, and she stretched luxuriously in the bed, rubbing her sleepy eyes as she threw back the duvet and padded over to the window.

The garden was like an illustration from a child’s story book, and Holly could almost imagine the trees being able to speak, the fruits full of enchantment.

Her room had its own bathroom, a luxury she decided she would never take for granted! She showered and washed her hair again, put on Luke’s white towelling gown, and was just thinking about going in search of her clothes when there was a rap on the door and she opened it to find him standing there, his eyes all shadowed, as though sleep had been at a premium.

His hair was still damp from the shower and he was dressed casually—still in a pair of faded blue denims with a thick, navy sweater pulled down low onto his hips.

‘Hello, Holly,’ he said softly, and just the sight of her stirred the memories of erotic dreams which had given him one of the worst nights in memory. ‘Sleep well?’

She beamed at him with a sunny smile. ‘Like a log!’

‘Lucky you,’ he commented drily, seeing the way her fingers fumbled to tighten the belt of her robe, or rather his robe, and he quickly held out her clean jeans, shirt and underwear. ‘Thought you might need these. Washed and folded.’

She took the stack of neatly folded clothes from him, and looked down at them in surprise. ‘I’m impressed,’ she murmured.

Luke’s eyes danced at her. ‘Real men don’t fold clothes, right? That’s your stereotype?’

‘I don’t know enough game reserve managers-cumlords of the manor to have formed a stereotype! But if ever times are hard—you could always find work in a laundry!’