The Engagement Deal (5 page)

‘Did I mention that Holly is Rowena Parish’s sister?’

‘Really, I’d never have guessed! You know, Niall,’ Tara mused thoughtfully, ‘I thought that if you ever married again it would be Rowena. Actually, Holly,’ she added in a wry aside, ‘when we were first married I was rather jealous of your sister and all their blood-brother pals act. If you know what I mean.’

Holly, who could identify completely with this comment, nodded.

‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ Tara laughed.

‘You never told me that!’ Niall exclaimed in a shocked voice. There was a dark band of colour across the slanting sweep of his high cheekbones.

Guilty conscience? Holly wondered uncharitably. Well, she couldn’t see a single reason why she should give Niall the benefit of the doubt.

‘Well, I wouldn’t, would I, silly.’

The loud sound of a chair being pushed over made them and every other diner in the restaurant turn around.

‘Oh, help, please, someone!’ An attractive woman was down on her knees beside the figure of a prone middle-aged man. ‘I don’t think he’s breathing!’ she wailed.

Holly wasn’t very far behind Niall as he moved towards the traumatised woman. He was feeling the man’s neck for a pulse when she dropped down on her knees.

‘Nothing,’ he said shaking his head. He started to loosen the tie around the portly man’s neck and the anxious companion began to wail in earnest, throwing herself bodily on top of the man.

‘Let me…’ Holly began.

‘Will you look after the woman?’ Niall curtly cut her off. ‘Has someone called an ambulance?’

‘I have, sir,’ the
maître d’
confirmed, materialising at their side. He took the distraught woman by the arm and pulled her to one side. He looked on doubtfully as Niall struck the man sharply on the chest and tilted his head back in readiness to begin mouth-to-mouth. ‘Don’t you think, sir, we should wait until a doctor arrives?’

‘I
AM
a doctor,’ Holly said, sparing him a brief glance before she began chest compressions. ‘One, two…’ She began to count out loud.

Briefly her eyes met Niall’s. ‘Game, set and match, you witch,’ he conceded.

‘Save your breath,’ Holly advised. ‘He needs it.’

The man had, much to her relief, started breathing before the paramedics had arrived. Holly was glad to see a familiar face. She gave a brief concise history to the big hunky paramedic, who listened and nodded as he gave the patient a quick assessment.

‘Just can’t keep away from me, can you, Doc Parish?’ He winked broadly at her. ‘Nice one,’ he added approvingly, nodding toward the figure on the stretcher. ‘We’ll take over now.’

‘Thank you, Paul.’

‘No, thank you, my sweet.’ He smiled warmly over his shoulder as they whisked the man off to the waiting ambulance. ‘We miss you already, Holly!’

Niall had watched this interchange through narrowed eyes and wondered if he looked as much of a fool as he felt—probably not. He felt
extremely
foolish!

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he demanded.

Holly inclined her head up towards the tall, grim-faced figure beside her. ‘Why didn’t you ask?’

Several people called out congratulatory comments as she made her way back to the table, where a shaken-looking Tara was drinking a large brandy. Tara got to her feet and enfolded Holly in a warm fragrant embrace.

‘You were so marvellous! Wasn’t she, Niall? I don’t know how you stayed so calm. I’m shaking like a leaf.’ She released Holly and held out a hand to demonstrate. ‘Well, now I know what you do.’

Holly, whose nails were kept conveniently short, envied the beautifully polished perfect set of nails the other woman had.

‘I shake, too—inside, at least.’

‘It must be marvellous knowing you can help people.’

‘It’s lucky she doesn’t live in a litigious country where she has to think twice about helping someone,’ Niall contributed wryly.

Thinking of Tara’s breathless sentiments, Holly nodded a little selfconsciously. With her friends and colleagues, she might have responded with a facetious remark which would have had them all laughing. Perhaps one day she’d develop the veneer of cynicism that many of her colleagues had, but deep down she agreed with Tara: she was lucky to be doing something she enjoyed so much.

‘It’s also extremely tiring,’ she responded lightly. ‘The hours are not exactly conducive to a social life either.’

‘I can imagine,’ Tara, who knew all about long gruelling hours, agreed.

Holly’s eyes twinkled as she gave a naughty smile. ‘But there are fringe benefits. Did you notice him…?’ she asked, her tongue firmly inserted in her cheek.

‘He was hard to miss,’ Tara responded immediately. ‘There’s something about a man in uniform…’ she mused with a twinkle.

‘Isn’t there just,’ Holly agreed with lascivious fervour.

‘Shall I leave?’ Despite his languid tone, Holly had the impression Niall wasn’t over the moon about their conversation.

‘Don’t tell me a bit of girlie talk is making you of all people feel insecure, Niall?’ Tara teased.

‘I wouldn’t like to be responsible for cramping your style, ladies.’

‘You won’t,’ Holly promised with a sweetly malicious smile.

‘Seriously, Holly, I know it’s hard to juggle a career and a marriage, but with a supportive partner anything’s possible.’ Tara, sitting beside her ex-partner, seemed genuinely unaware of any irony in her statement.

‘There aren’t many partners
that
supportive,’ Holly responded cynically. She’d seen marriages stretched to the limit break under the strain.

‘Well, you don’t have to look, do you? Because you’ve found one.’ She looked across the table at Niall and smiled warmly. ‘You know I’m so glad he’s marrying you and not Rowena. I’m sure she’s a very nice person,’ she added anxiously as Holly shot her a quizzical look. ‘But you two look sort of right together. And just look how well you worked together just now.’

There hadn’t been time to wonder during the panic, but now a disturbed and squirming Holly could recall how, bizzarely, Niall had seemed to know what she wanted him to do before she asked him when they had worked in unison to save the man’s life. If he anticipated a woman’s—or, more specifically,
her
—needs that well in other, more pleasurable, situations, it would be quite something, she reflected.

For several dreamy seconds, she let her mind dwell speculatively on the steamy sensual images that floated into her head.

‘Sure, we’re soul mates from way back.’

The blistering sarcasm in his voice made Tara look at him with shocked disapproval and woke Holly from the erotic permutations she’d been spinning around the general bedroom theme. Her eyes opened wide with dismay as a horrified fractured sigh emerged from her dry lips.

‘You’re tired,’ Niall observed, noticing her sigh, but fortunately not knowing the cause.

He sounded concerned, if a little cross, as though she’d got tired just to irritate him, but the tender lover was all part of the act, she reminded herself, burying her nose in a balloon of brandy that Tara had pushed into her hands to avoid looking directly at him.

All this talk of supportive, understanding partners was making her feel all soft and sentimental, not to mention just a mite wistful. Then she’d made the criminally stupid mistake of imagining what sort of lover Niall would make.

Pretending that she didn’t find him wildly attractive wasn’t going to get her anywhere, she told herself with stern pragmatism. What she had to do was keep her imagination on a strict rein. She was grown up; she didn’t have to go broadcasting the fact she was privately lusting after his body. And it is just his body, it’s that superficial, she told herself firmly. I don’t even
like
the man, for goodness’ sake!

She knew there were a lot of women in Niall Wesley’s life and, even if he had displayed any interest in her, Holly had no wish to join the ranks of his mistresses. There seemed to be two very important women his life—Niall’s beautiful ex-wife and her own sister. A wise woman knew when not to compete. No, her relationship with Niall was going to stay safely in the realms of make-believe!

Holly was relieved when Niall made their excuses early. Sitting in the taxi on the journey home, he didn’t seem inclined to talk. When he did, the sound of his deep voice made her jump.

‘I suppose a boyfriend didn’t give you the black eye, either?’ There was resigned certainty in his voice. ‘In the line of duty…?’

Holly nodded and continued to pretend a great interest in the traffic that was crawling past in the next lane. ‘A drunk with a head wound got a bit out of hand. Actually, it was Paul, the paramedic you saw earlier, who pulled him off.’

‘A versatile guy.’ For a muscle-bound freak.

‘He’s a very nice person.’ It was bad enough to be on the receiving end of Niall’s sneers without having her friends coming in for the same treatment.

‘Don’t they have any sort of security in these places?’ Niall wondered disapprovingly.

‘Of course they have security.’

‘It just doesn’t work very well.’

Her shoulders lifted in concession. ‘Not always.’

‘Why did you let me drone on and on?’

‘Because you seem to like the sound of your own voice…’ With a rueful little smile she broke off and, clasping both her palms together, rested her lips against the peak of her fingertips. ‘Actually, I was mad as hell because you’d thought I could be the sort of woman who would tolerate an abusive relationship. You were being intolerably patronising, condescending and sanctimonious.’

‘Don’t hold back, will you? Tell me exactly how you feel.’

Niall, who had been on the receiving end of many a smile of practised seduction, found her small lop-sided little grin had a curious charm.

‘I can see your point.’

‘You can?’ Startled, she looked directly at him for the first time since this conversation had begun.

‘You seemed to get on with Tara—very well.’

‘I liked her.’ But not as much as you do! She gave a tight smile. ‘I didn’t like deceiving her.’

‘Don’t worry, it was all in a good cause. Tara in self-sacrifice mode is hard to stop.’

‘How are you going to explain it to her when you don’t get married?’

‘Don’t worry about my imagination; it hasn’t let me down yet.’

‘Tara said as much,’ she grunted.

Niall’s dark brows shot upwards and Holly blushed in case he realised she’d spent more time than she ought to thinking about the implications of this statement.

‘I take it your Sleeping Beauty act wasn’t the result of prolonged debauchery, either?’

‘It was a mistake to go for a farewell drink after a very long and busy weekend on call, especially as the drink turned into an impromptu party. Oh, God!’ she yelped suddenly clamping a hand to her forehead.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I haven’t called Mum.’ And then she added, in case he thought it odd that a woman of her age felt obliged to contact her parents at regular intervals, ‘she’ll be imagining me in some dreadful scrape.’

This overprotective maternal concern was all because she’d been a little bit accident-prone as a child. When she’d tried to tell her mother she didn’t go around climbing trees any more, her parent had said in her best I-know-better-than-you voice, ‘Worse things than falling out of trees happen to big girls.’ Holly’s youthful insistence that she was a
big girl now
was a standing joke in their family because, as it turned out, she never had got big.

Her dark eyes sparkled with sudden mischievous mockery. ‘I can always get on my broomstick if the line’s busy.’

Niall found the mercurial shift of her expression strangely compelling. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this much interest in a woman.

‘I didn’t say I have anything against witches…Especially if they have auburn hair, an exceptional body and skin like milk.’ He tilted his head to one side and let his gleaming eyes dwell lingeringly on the attributes he’d just so lovingly described.

Holly listened with a detached sense of disbelief to his husky drawl. My God, is he making a pass at me? Niall Wesley making a pass! It struck her with painful clarity that dream scenarios were a very inadequate preparation for reality. She discovered that although her whole body was aching with a very undreamlike need, she was repelled by the idea he was just going through the motions, the same way he probably did any time he found himself in a promising situation with a woman.

‘The orthodontist did a good job on my teeth, too. Do you want to take a look?’ she snapped, furious with him for being so superficially obvious. ‘Flirting wasn’t in the script,’ she reminded him gruffly. If he had an ounce of sensitivity, they might be able to avoid an embarrassing scene.

‘I’m improvising.’ In direct defiance of the small voice of sanity in the back of his skull, the one that said this wasn’t the sort of girl he wanted to get involved with. She was cranky, plagued by insecurities and had a viperous tongue.

It didn’t escape her notice that he hadn’t denied the flirting part—so she wasn’t imagining things—not that the sizzling sensuality in his eyes left much room for doubt. Holly clenched her fists into tight balls and her gusty breath made the soft copper tendrils around her face gently dance.

‘Then start!’ she demanded fiercely.

‘You seem insulted.’ He didn’t consider himself a particularly vain man, but her response wasn’t exactly flattering. She was definitely attracted to him, too; he hadn’t passed thirty without being able to pick up on these things.

‘Is there someone else?’

She shook her head. ‘If you’re worried I’ll be insulted if you don’t ask, don’t. I won’t be. I don’t think your reputation as a superstud will suffer too much if you take one night off.’ Chewing her full lower lip, she tugged off the ring and thrust it out to him without meeting his eyes.

The last little flicker of humour left his face. Niall couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt this frustrated by a woman. What was it about about this red-headed witch, who seemed completely unaware she’d insulted him by implying he was promiscuous? he brooded darkly. Did she think he had actively courted the reputation the media had lumbered him with? Did she think he enjoyed it?

‘Actually,’ he said, receiving the ring with a curt inclination of his head, ‘I don’t make love to
everyone
I share a cab with…only the females,’ he added with blighting sarcasm.

Holly was aware she’d made him angry and tried to retrieve the situation. ‘You know what I mean. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your attitude to sex,’ she told him kindly.

‘That’s very open-minded of you.’

Had she bruised his ego? He was certainly looking at her a bit oddly. ‘Perhaps I’m just not a very spontaneous person.’ She didn’t care if she sounded terminally prim. ‘I probably take more time deciding which breakfast cereal to buy than you do choosing your partners.’

Niall’s nostrils quivered. ‘I can remember a time when you asked me to teach you how to kiss—that seemed pretty spontaneous,’ he taunted, ripping impatiently at the knot of his constricting tie.

It took Holly several seconds to collect her startled wits. ‘A cheap shot,’ she told him with reproachful candour. ‘I don’t know what you hope to achieve by dredging that up!’

Niall’s colour deepened. He wasn’t sure, either. As he recalled, the occasion had been the perfect ending to the weekend from hell, which had started with the discovery that the man who had got his kid sister pregnant was married!

‘I was way out of line, not to mention seeing the world through cider-tinted spectacles,’ she admitted, uncomfortable at the memory. ‘But I was a kid, you weren’t, and you were far tougher on me than the situation warranted. In fact,’ she told him frankly, ‘you were fairly vicious.’

It wasn’t as if she’d had any street cred to lose when she’d drunk the first glass of cider at a private park, she had just naively assumed that cider was a fairly innocuous drink. Even though she’d got tipsy, things would have been all right if her parents had been waiting up for her as they usually did, but the house had been in darkness when she’d arrived home.