The Engagement Deal Read online

  ‘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.

  Feeling like a sophisticated woman of the world, Holly had offered to make her escort a coffee. The sophisticated feeling had lasted until they got as far as the sitting room and he’d pounced. What could only be termed an undignified struggle ensued and Holly panicked.

  The struggle had come to an abrupt halt when a table lamp had been switched on. The fight had magically gone right out of her would-be seducer when Niall emerged sleepy-eyed, bare-chested and very irritably from his makeshift bed on the sofa. When he’d actually got to his feet, the boy had taken one look at Niall, all six foot plus of perfectly muscled manhood, and without a word had fled.

  Holly had hardly noticed him go. She’d never been this close to an almost naked man before and it, or maybe the cider, was making her feel quite odd. She hadn’t known that men could be that beautiful, but Niall was.

  He had sounded quite concerned when he asked her if she was all right. Holly had nodded mutely and tried to straighten her dishevelled clothes and mussed-up hair. Then, looking stern but kindly, Niall had begun to say a lot of things to her that her father already had. It was one thing to be read a lecture by her dad, quite another to be censured by the man of her youthful dreams! Holly had burned with humiliation—he was talking to her as if she were a kid.

  ‘Besides,’ Niall had s
aid, coming to a light-hearted conclusion, ‘It was no loss. The groper didn’t look like he could kiss. I should wait until you find someone who—’

  The condescension on top of her humiliation was just too much to take. Hands on her narrow hips, chin and chest thrust aggressively out, she blurted, ‘If you’re so good at it, why don’t you teach me how to kiss?’

  Niall had looked at her in a way that made her feel about two inches tall and slightly grubby, to boot! That’s when he’d really laid into her, annihilating her character in blisteringly forthright terms.

  Niall cleared his throat and looked, much to her amazement, self-consciously uncomfortable. If she hadn’t known he didn’t suffer from self-doubt, she might have suspected he had doubts himself about how he’d handled the situation he’d found himself thrust into. A situation which, she readily acknowledged, most young men would have found horrific.

  ‘It’s sometimes kinder to be cruel, and I’d call that kick you landed pretty vicious.’ Better to be accused of going over the top than not noticing a potentially dangerous situation that was staring him in the face. His expression grew bleak as his thoughts turned to his sister Jude.

  ‘It was a lucky shot,’ she told him, recalling how scared she’d been when, on the one and only time in her life she’d ever resorted to physical violence, the big strong man had sunk, winded and in obvious agony, to his knees. ‘And it wasn’t just cruel to call me a stupid little tart,’ she pointed out acidly, ‘it was untrue. I just hope for your son’s sake your ideas of enlightened child guidance have mellowed over the years.’

  Niall’s angular jaw tightened at this scathing reference to his parenting skills. ‘I take it you’ve been harbouring a grudge all these years,’ he deduced with incredulous scorn. ‘It really has made your day, having the opportunity to knock me back. Or is the rejection meant to pique my interest?’

  ‘Your humility makes me feel humble. There’s a much simpler and more likely explanation, but I can see that’s too revolutionary so I’ll spell it out. I just don’t fancy you, Niall.’

  He raised one irritatingly sceptical brow and repressed an uncivilised urge to make her eat her words. It would be a pleasure, he thought, examining the lush contours of her wilful mouth.

  ‘Your mouth’s saying one thing; those big hungry eyes are saying something quite different.’

  The smug…The problem was, he was right. Her slender back felt exposed as a prickle of fear ran the length of her stiff spine. No matter how much she denied it, she knew she was sexually aware of Niall as a rampantly attractive male with every fibre of her hot sticky body. Holly hoped and prayed that all he could see in her eyes right now was sarcastic contempt. She wiped the palms of her sweaty hands nervously against her thighs.

  ‘If it makes you and your ego happier to think that, that’s fine by me.’

  Niall laughed, there was arrogant confidence in the sound. Cheeks flaming, teeth grating, Holly decided to maintain a dignified but frigid silence for the rest of the journey.

  He didn’t walk her into the building; she didn’t care about that, but after saving his skin you’d have thought he would have the common courtesy to thank her. Why am I surprised? she asked herself. He’s nothing but a rich spoilt playboy and Rowena and Tara are welcome to him!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘YOU’RE staying for the weekend when you pick up Thomas.’ There was no hint of doubt in the confident voice on the other end of the line.

  Niall sighed and gave a thumbs-up sign to his assistant, who was still awaiting his response to a question. The door closed behind the quietly efficient individual.

  ‘I suppose I could,’ he confirmed reluctantly. Giving his diary a quick mental review, he felt a stab of affectionate irritation. He was used to his mother’s interference but this didn’t alter the fact he hated being organised, and she knew it.

  This was the longest time he’d ever spent without his son. He’d been eagerly looking forward to having Tom to himself when the boy got back from his Stateside holiday. Looking at it objectively—something he rarely did, where his son was concerned—he supposed that he was being selfish. His parents didn’t see as much of the boy as they liked.

  ‘And bring her with you.’

  Niall stopped twirling the pen between his fingers. ‘Her who…?’ he enquired ungrammatically.

  ‘Her, your fiancée,’ came back the smooth response.

  Niall dropped the pen on the floor. He hadn’t calculated for Tara talking to his mother—he ought to have! Silently he cursed himself for not noticing this giant flaw in his otherwise excellent plan.

  ‘What are you talking about, Mother?’

  His bored tone didn’t have the desired effect on his mother—but it had been worth a try.

  ‘Don’t waste all that on me. I’ve been speaking to Tara. Really, Niall, if you want to keep a secret, she is the very worst person to confide in. She tells me this girl is very nice—but, as Tara could see some good in a mass murderer, I’m reserving judgement. As for all this nonsense about getting used to the situation!’ A scornful sound of disgust reached ears. ‘Since when did you get so precious?’ she demanded brusquely of her eldest born. ‘What’s wrong with the girl?’

  ‘I’m not sure if Holly can make it, Mother…’

  ‘I’m sure you can persuade her. I’m always hearing how persuasive women find you.’

  Niall, who was used to his mother’s bracing sarcasm remained cheerfully unstressed by the savage witticism. His mother was always very forthright when it came to commenting on his character—though only, as she often said herself, in a constructive way.

  ‘I can’t make any promises…’

  ‘Nothing new there, then. You’re the most evasive man I’ve ever come across,’ Maeve Wesley continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘You know your father and I are going back with Chris and Jude to stay for a month, so it has to be this weekend. Unless you’d prefer me to come up to town to meet her? Is she living with you?’

  ‘We’ll see you this weekend, Mother.’ Some things in life were inevitable, he reflected philosophically. He put the phone down and immediately redialled. What time would it be in New York, right now?

  Holly looped the dangling strap of her small backpack up over one shoulder and pulled down the rucked sleeve of her short denim jacket. She frowned at the dusty mark on the toe of one of her newly acquired ankle-length boots, and surreptitiously rubbed the mark against the curve of her shapely calf, covered at this moment by the ankle-length skirt she wore. While she was still slightly off balance, someone waved something large and glittery under her nose. The same ever so slightly tip-tilted nose twitched as it immediately recognised the very faint, very exclusive fragrance.

  She lost the thread of the thought that had been debating the awkward choice between linguine and tagliatelle as her heart went from quiet amble to breathless sprint in the space of a single beat. The sensation of a fist tightening in her stomach was so powerful she almost doubled over to nurse the acute pain. She made no immediate effort to make contact with those mesmeric blue eyes; instead, she took several steadying breaths first and felt deeply disgusted with herself for this feeble display of lust.

  ‘What’s this?’ Holly knew perfectly well what it was. It was a ring, a sapphire ring, and she’d seen it before. She passed a hand swiftly over her mouth, blotting the light sheen of moisture along her upper lip. The skinny-rib top she wore clung damply to her spine.

  At least she hadn’t said, ‘Who are you?’ Or possibly, Niall mused, examining the hostile light in the dark brown eyes fixed on his face, starting from scratch might have been more promising. Still, he’d been prepared for this reaction. Niall prided himself that he was prepared for most things. Or maybe not…He hadn’t been entirely prepared for the strength of the sexual tension that was buzzing around them.

  His eyes did a distracted once over—she was really tiny, with a bone structure to match her height. He was sure he could span that waist with his
hands and still have plenty of room over. In that bohemian get-up, if he hadn’t known what an edible body dwelt beneath the layered look…Only, he did know. He didn’t frequent supermarkets much himself but he suspected that copulation in the aisles was pretty much frowned on. Pity.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ Her throat was bone dry.

  ‘Shopping?’ Niall suggested, looking intelligently at the neatly stacked shelves around them.

  Holly’s sceptical gaze moved from her own laden trolley to his empty hands. ‘Let me give you a tip: they like you to carry a basket. Even now the store detective’s probably got you under surveillance as a suspicious character.’

  Actually, in his beautifully cut designer suit, he was drawing a lot of attention—and all of it, predictably, was female.

  She didn’t blame her fellow shoppers for goggling. Men like Niall didn’t often buy baked beans in supermarkets—they didn’t do anything so mundane! They were the sort of men you saw brooding dangerously in moodily lit black-and-white-ads for designer items. He was the rogue male stallion who’d strolled unexpectedly into the midst of a domestic herd, and his presence was creating a murmur of excitement—a loud murmur! She rolled her eyes, despising the fanciful analogy even as it popped into her head.

  ‘I hoped I’d bump into you.’ Words to gladden the heart of any lonely single shopper had they, unlike herself, not known what a snake in the grass he was.

  ‘Hoped? I got the distinct impression you couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’

  ‘That was my frustration speaking.’ Holly glared back with glacial indifference. ‘All right,’ he conceded, boosting the charm level of his winning smile by several hundred volts. ‘Planned. You were leaving the flat when I arrived, so I followed you.’