The Prospective Wife (7 page)

Since when did helicopter pilots hold business meetings that went on for hours, anyhow? she wondered, squaring her shoulders and raising her clenched fist to the door. Perhaps it was more of a social occasion she was about to try and throw cold water on…? Well, so be it; the man should know better.

She knocked and strode confidently into the room—those years shifting scenery at the amateur dramatics hadn’t been wasted after all.

This was a library in the real sense, not a couple of flat-pack bookshelves and a stack of paperbacks. She had never known anyone who owned his very own library before, and even if this wasn’t strictly Matt Devlin’s he looked quite comfortable in the role. He also looked, as Mrs Nichols had indicated, dead on his feet, or rather not his feet—fortunately even his stupidity had limits.

His face was turned away from her but even from where she was standing she could see the dark shadows beneath his eyes that contrasted dramatically with his stark pallor. Kat experienced two wildly conflicting desires—one was to batter some sense into his thick skull, the other to wrap him up in cotton wool and protect him from every little draught.

He was seated in a leather swivel chair with a high buttoned back. There was a laptop open on the big mahogany desk and piles of papers were spread over the gleaming surface. Matt and two people, one male and one female, standing either side of him, appeared to be poring over them. He still hadn’t looked up.

‘Tell Cook the sandwiches were delicious.’ Kat watched him slyly shift a sheaf of papers to disguise the fact the plate was barely touched before he lifted his head. His engaging smile looked a bit frayed around the edges.

When he saw who was standing there, shock and something else, something that made Kat’s responsive stomach muscles quiver, widened his deep blue eyes.

‘Kathleen!’ The line bisecting his dark eyebrows deepened suspiciously. ‘What are you doing here?’ He drew a tired hand through his dark hair.

‘Saving you from yourself,’ she told him grimly.

Matt blinked. ‘Was that in the contract?’ he enquired mildly.

A paper drifted from the top of a pile and Kat automatically reached out and caught it. She barely glanced at the typed sheet but the familiar eye-catching logo on the letterhead was hard to miss—she’d flown Fair Flights on her last trip abroad. This innocuous detail alone wouldn’t have made her hand tremble as she replaced it, but the bold signature below the printed title of managing director did!

‘Thank you.’

Not a pilot—he ran the whole damned thing! Kat stood there feeling incredibly stupid for not catching on earlier; there had been enough clues! Boss of a firm that had flouted all the rules and succeeded—the role fitted this man like a glove.

‘You’d know all about contracts, I suppose,’ Kat accused.

If Matt was surprised by her comment or the spark of anger in her eyes, he hid it well.

‘It’s all in the detail,’ he agreed equably.

‘For a supposedly clever man,’ she snapped, ‘you can be remarkably stupid at times.’ Well, I was wondering what I was going to say—now I know.

The noise of the guests’ collective jaws gaping was almost audible; even Matt, whom she knew wasn’t easy to shock, looked startled this time.

Please be startled amused not startled mad, she prayed.

Without taking his eyes from her defiant face, he pushed his chair backwards; the castors moved silently over the dense carpet.

‘Grace, Tim, I don’t think you’ve met Kathleen.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ the young man with the receding hairline and the horn-rimmed specs said respectfully.

The woman just looked through her heavily made-up eyes and then, with jangle of earrings and a confident little smile that dismissed Kat in her dowdy unimaginative clothes as no competition at all, returned her attention to Matt.

Kat let her own lips twitch but stopped just sort of smiling. She didn’t dislike all women who were almost six foot and a size ten on principle, but she felt that on this occasion she was willing to make an exception.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr Devlin, but you should be in bed.’

Kat watched his eyes narrow and felt sure all hell was about to break loose. He was going to remind her in front of the interested audience just who was boss.

Just because he didn’t yell straight off, I had to go and get cocky.

It took several seconds of squinting before Matt’s blurry vision cleared. He saw that the magnificent and irritating Miss Wray was looking apprehensive but unrepentant. He couldn’t help but admire her sheer guts.

‘Is this desire to get me in bed a personal—’ he let the thought hang in the air ‘—or professional request, Kathleen?’

She blushed, even though Matt didn’t look capable of seducing anyone right now. Her concern deepened; he looked like a man whose adrenaline levels were dropping rapidly. The over-stimulated brightness she’d seen in his eyes when she’d entered the room was fast becoming a glazed vagueness.

‘I really must get on top of that over-developed mothering instinct of mine.’

‘Touché!’ He turned to his silent acolytes. ‘I know what you’re thinking…bolshy, pushy…’

‘You forgot to add correct.’

He shot her an impatient frown. ‘I didn’t forget, Kathleen, I was rudely interrupted. As I was about to say, unfortunately just now she’s also right.
Satisfied?
’

Satisfaction was not the emotion uppermost in Kat’s mind as she folded her arms across her chest.

‘I rather lose track of time,’ he conceded. ‘The fact is, folks, I’ve felt more alert in my sleep.’

‘Right, boss, no problem.’ The spectacles responded immediately. He went to help Matt as he pulled himself to his feet and then very obviously thought better of it—Kat thought he’d made the right decision.

The woman waited until he was on his feet before reaching up and placing a kiss on his cheek. ‘Of course, Matt. You should have said.’

Kat could almost see the redhead wondering what she’d missed the first time as she subjected her to a second unfriendly scrutiny.

‘Can I help…?’

‘Thank you, Grace, but that’s what Kat is paid to do—aren’t you, Kathleen.’

She heard the slight slur in his voice and looked sharply into his eyes. She recognised with some alarm that he was a lot nearer to total exhaustion than she had imagined.

‘Paid obscenely well,’ she agreed, surreptitiously shadowing his slow progress across the room.

‘I didn’t know you’d employed a nurse,’ the redhead exclaimed.

Matt’s deep drowning blue eyes were fixed on Kat’s face. ‘I haven’t.’

Kat felt sure it wasn’t by chance he didn’t enlighten them further. Whether this was because he didn’t explain himself on principle or he enjoyed embarrassing her, Kat couldn’t decide.

Five minutes later—which had seemed a lot longer at times to Kat—Matt reached above his head and pulled a pillow from the pile at the bedhead. Wearily, he shoved it under his neck.

His big body was slewed at an awkward angle, half on and half off the bed, but Kat—who had thought she’d have to call for reinforcements at one point during their transfer—was relieved they’d made it this far. She watched his eyes close, as if the effort of grabbing the pillow had exhausted his last resources.

‘I feel drunk, and I’ve not touched a drop,’ he informed her in a puzzled accent.

The dark veil of his thick lashes cast a dark shadow against his high cheekbones. It would have been a massive exaggeration to say he looked vulnerable, but in repose his face looked a lot softer. Kat, in danger of succumbing to dangerous mushy feelings, pulled her eyes away from his face.

‘It’s sleep deprivation,’ she informed him tartly. ‘You can only cheat your body so long; even
you
have to sleep eventually. And actually I’m not
paid
to do this,’ she added in a disgruntled undertone.

‘Do what?’ Matt didn’t open his eyes.

Kat slid off his remaining shoe and, with a bit of huffing, succeeded in swinging his long legs onto the bed on which he was lying.

‘I’m not paid to put you to bed.’

She pulled the thin cover up over his still clothed body; there was no way she was removing anything but his shoes. She tucked the cover under his chin.

‘You did it out of the goodness of your heart.’

His warm breath brushed her cheek as she straightened up. ‘I’m missing my supper for this. I must be mad!’

‘Not mad, sweet.’ Then he went and spoilt it by adding in a silkily stagy drawl that robbed his words of sincerity, ‘I’m touched by such a selfless gesture in this avaricious old world.’

‘Will you be serious for a minute?’ she pleaded tightly.

Matt’s heavy eyelids lifted for a moment, and she could almost feel the enormous effort the gesture cost him. ‘For you, anything,’ he said before they sleepily closed.

‘It’s important you ease yourself gently back into work,’ she told him worriedly.

‘I know, I know…’ He yawned and lifted a hand over his head. ‘I just tend to be a bit over-protective of my baby…’

There was no mistaking the proprietorial note in his rueful voice.

‘Your
baby!
You mean you don’t just run the airline, you own it?’ Kat was startled into exclaiming.

‘Well at the beginning there were two of us, until good old
reliable
Damon very nearly gambled our assets out from under us.’

‘Gambled?’ Kat ejaculated. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘Want to bet?’ Matt challenged, grinning at his own wit. ‘It’s a solo show these days,’ he told her, his deep voice slurred and sleepy.

Almost before he had finished speaking, the rhythm of his breathing had altered.

She stood there listening to the deep, even rhythm for a few moments. Ironically they did have something in common after all; they’d both been the innocent victims of a gambling addiction.

‘Shut up and go to sleep,’ she advised, determined that for once she’d get the last word.

It seemed an invasion of his privacy somehow to stand there gawking, but there was something about his face that fascinated Kat. She jumped guiltily when he murmured sleepily and flung an arm over his head. The covers slid down and she couldn’t help but notice how tight his shirt pulled against his neck.

How would I feel if he choked to death in the night just because I was too squeamish to loosen his buttons? She fought to subdue her overpowering reluctance to touch him.

With a wildly beating heart, she sat on the edge of the bed and reached over to loosen the top button, which due to her shaking fingers wasn’t as easy as it sounded, and then the next.

His skin was warm… Kat expelled her breath in an angry gusty sigh. Well, what did you expect, idiot? she asked herself sarcastically. The man’s not made of marble!

No, he was made of flesh and blood and other intriguing things that the modest sliver of flesh she’d revealed gave tantalising hints of. Intriguing things like firm muscles and dark curling body hair. Under her fingers she could feel the steady rise and fall of his chest.

‘That should do it,’ she announced to nobody in particular.

Still she still didn’t move.

Where would be the harm?

She only had to stretch her fingers a little wider and she’d be able to feel… Beads of moisture broke out over her upper lip. It was only when her fingertips began to quiver that the full shame of what she’d been contemplating hit her.

Choking back a cry of shamed horror, she backed out of the room.

IF SHE’D expected Matt to sleep the clock around Kat was disappointed—or maybe not. It was the maybe not part that bothered her! Anyone would think she was anxious to see him.

The message relayed by Mrs Nichols during breakfast was that he’d like to see her in the pool in forty-five minutes. That had happened forty-eight minutes ago, according to her watch.

Despite the fact she was beginning to feel a little too warm in the baggy tee-shirt that she wore over her swimsuit, Kat felt strangely reluctant to strip off. Instead she sat at the side of the pool and trailed her toes in the water.

She was indulging in a little childish splashing when Matt emerged from the door that connected with his bedroom suite. She’d already kind of admitted to herself that Matt Devlin gave off sexual vibes of an earthy raw variety to which she wasn’t
totally
invulnerable—after last night, did she have a choice?—so she expected to feel something…only not this much
something!

Despite the humidified constant temperature in the pool-house a rash of goose bumps spontaneously broke out over her skin as he appeared. Every step he took nearer seemed to trigger a new body system to go haywire… The complete disintegration of her nervous system didn’t take long at all.

Anyone would think you’d never seen a man in pair of swimming shorts before…! Pull yourself together, Kat! Under the cover of retying her ponytail she gave herself a sharp lecture on the evils of behaving with all the discrimination of a groupie!

She gave her blonde hair an extra vicious tweak just before discovering, much to her horror, that good intentions and determination didn’t come into the equation. She was suffering from a
visceral
response over which she apparently had no control… The only alternative left open to her seemed to be to treat it like bad case of the flu and wait for her immunity to develop a few defences—for the sake of her sanity and self-respect, sooner would be better than later!

He had discarded the crutches in favour of a single cane. Small wonder his mother wanted someone around to keep an eye on him; left to himself, the man would probably run a marathon within the month!

She continued to watch his slow but determined progress with a hammering heart and an expression she hoped and prayed was unimpeachably objective. Ironically, considering his halting progress, his was a body built for speed, long lean and sleekly muscular, with no suggestion of bulk about the well-defined slabs of tight muscle. It would take more than a leg held together by a selection of nuts and bolts to alter the fact that this man had a raw earthy magnetism right off the scale!