Читать книгу Bought To Wear The Billionaire's Ring - Кэтти Уильямс, CATHY WILLIAMS, Cathy Williams - Страница 8
ОглавлениеSAMMY BLINKED AND then folded her arms, body as rigid as a plank of wood. Anger was bubbling up inside her. After one glance at the navy blue box he had dumped on the table, she hadn’t deigned to give it a second look.
‘Is this some kind of joke?’ she asked coldly.
‘Do I look like the kind of man who would show up on a woman’s doorstep and propose marriage as a joke?’
‘I have no idea, Leo. I don’t know what kind of person you are.’ Aside, she thought furiously, from the obvious.
‘Open the box.’
Sammy eyed it with a guarded expression and did nothing of the sort. But her fingers were twitching and, uttering a soft, impatient curse under her breath, she reached down and flipped open the lid.
An engagement ring nestled on a deep blue velvet cushion. The exquisite solitaire diamond blinked at her and she blinked back at it, utterly dumbfounded. Her hand was shaking as she placed the box, still open, back on the table and moved to sit down on the chair facing him.
‘What the heck is going on here, Leo? You can’t possibly be serious. You show up here with an engagement ring, asking me to marry you. Something’s wrong. What is it? Is that ring even real?’
‘Oh, it’s a hundred per cent real. And guess what? You get to keep it when this is all over.’
Sammy’s head was swimming. Less than an hour ago, she was a stressed out primary school teacher with a stack of exercise books to mark. Now, she was the main character in some weird parallel universe story with a sexy billionaire sitting on one of her chairs and an engagement ring in front of her.
Nothing about this scenario was making any sense.
‘When what’s all over?’ she asked as she tried to make sense of the situation and came up blank.
* * *
Leo sighed. Maybe he should have forewarned her but what would have been the point? She would still have been utterly bewildered. Much better that he was sitting in front of her so that he could explain the situation face-to-face.
If she couldn’t believe that this was happening then they were roughly on the same page.
Beyond the fact that the words will you marry me had never featured in any scenario he had ever envisaged for his future, he certainly would never have chosen Samantha Wilson as the recipient of his proposal.
He had met the woman over the years in countless different situations and he had been left with the impression of someone so background as to be practically invisible. She’d never been rude to him. She had always answered his questions politely, barely meeting his eyes before scuttling away as soon as she could. Aside from one conversation years ago. A conversation lodged at the back of his brain... But, after that, he had met her again—had tried to engage her attention—and nothing. He had no idea whether she had a boyfriend or not, whether she had a social life or not, whether she had hobbies or not.
In his world, where women strutted around like flamboyant peacocks, she was the equivalent of a sparrow. Perfect, of course, for the job at hand but hardly the sort of woman he would ever have looked at twice in that way.
‘I suppose you know about Sean and his wife,’ Leo began.
She nodded slowly. ‘I’m sorry. You have my condolences. It was a horrible end for both of them. What on earth would have persuaded Sean to take flying lessons, of all things? And to have flown solo in bad weather with Louise, without his instructor... It beggars belief. But I’m so sorry.’
‘No need for the sorrow or the condolences—’ he waved aside ‘—I wasn’t close to Sean so I can’t say his absence is going to leave a big hole in my life.’
‘That’s very honest of you.’
She was looking at him with those huge, surprisingly riveting blue, blue eyes and, while her voice was perfectly serious, Leo couldn’t help but suspect a thread of sarcasm underlying her remark. She’d never struck him as the sarcastic type.
‘I suppose you’re also aware that my father has been extremely upset that Sean’s daughter, whom he considers his granddaughter, remains in Australia as a ward of her maternal grandmother.’
‘It’s a shame, but I’m sure she’ll be allowed over to visit your dad in time, once she’s a bit older. Look, Leo, I still don’t see what this has to do with me or—’ her eyes flicked down to the box burning a hole on the table in front of her ‘—or that engagement ring.’
‘When Sean and Louise died, it was presumed that the child would be sent over here to live with me. Louise was an only child from a difficult background, without any extended family who could take Adele under their wing and Louise’s mother also had a somewhat...colourful history.’
‘I know there have been rumours...’
‘My father receives monthly requests from her for handouts and that is in addition to the money he continued to send to Sean over the years, well after his divorce from Sean’s mother was finalised.’
‘Your dad has a soft heart,’ Sammy said warmly.
‘A soft heart is only a small step away from being a soft touch,’ Leo muttered and she frowned disapprovingly at him.
‘I’m sure the money he sent over was really useful...’
‘I’m sure it was,’ Leo responded drily. ‘The question is, useful to whom? But no matter. That’s history. What we’re dealing with is the present, which brings me to the subject of the engagement ring...’ Admittedly, he had sprung this on her and had expected nothing but shock. Horror, however, hadn’t entered the equation because, whether the engagement was fake or not, he couldn’t think of a single woman who wouldn’t have been thrilled to see a diamond like that and to know that it was destined for her finger.
Right now, the woman sitting in front of him was glancing down at the box with a moue of distaste, as though looking at something that could prove infectious in a nasty way.
‘My father has recently received an unpleasant email suggesting that Adele, against all common sense and certainly not in her best interests, may end up remaining in Australia with Sean’s mother-in-law. The woman has clearly decided that it makes sense financially for her to hang on to Adele because, as long as she has the child in her custody, she will continue to receive money from my father, which, incidentally, is actually money from me. You may or may not know that his writing has been off the boil for a long time. The family company is doing well but I would rather not be financially embroiled with this woman forever.’
‘I’m just wondering what all of this has to do with me,’ Sammy confessed.
This had to be the longest conversation in recent years that she had ever had with the man and she was mortified because the cool composure she was at pains to display was at vibrant odds with what she was feeling. She certainly wasn’t cool and composed inside. In fact, she was all over the place.
Her senses were on full alert and she didn’t fully understand why.
Surely she was mature enough not to turn into a dithering wreck simply because she happened to be in the company of a man who was too attractive for his own good? She was a working woman, a teacher, with heaps of responsibility, someone with enough life experience behind her to recognise Leo for the man he really was as opposed to the one-dimensional, gorgeous cardboard cut-out who had once turned her silly teenage head...
Except...
Maybe her life experience was sorely lacking in a certain vital area. Maybe that was why just looking at him was making her skin tingle.
She had plenty of experience in caring for her mother, as she had been doing for the past year and a half. She knew all about communicating with doctors and hospitals and nurses and making her voice heard because her mother, although she had been a nurse herself, had been swallowed up with fear and confusion. She had needed someone strong to lean on and that person had been her, Sammy. And she had plenty of experience under her belt of taking charge, of controlling unruly primary school children until they were as meek as little lambs.
She had argued with bank managers and spent hours trying to balance the books and had exhausted herself with pep talks to her mother, convincing her that the cottage was safe even though the mortgage payments had fallen behind.
And, through it all, she had done her best to hang on to her sense of humour and her sense of perspective.
But there was that whole other area where she had no experience at all.
A vast, blurry, opaque space where she was a stranger because, despite having had two serious boyfriends, she had yet to test the sexual waters.
They had both been attractive and she’d liked them very much. In fact, they’d ticked all the boxes in her head in terms of suitability and yet...she just hadn’t fancied them enough to go the whole way.
She and Pete had broken up over a year and a half ago, and since then she had resigned herself to the fact that there was probably something wrong with her. Some faulty gene in her make-up. Maybe it was because there had been no father figure in her life since she had been a kid, yet, even to her, that argument made no sense.
So she’d long stopped analysing the whys and maybes.
She hadn’t taken into account that her lack of experience in that small, stupid area, insignificant in the big scheme of things, might have left her vulnerable to a man like Leo, with his sexy, spectacular good looks and that lazy, assessing charm that oozed from every pore.
‘Sean had the foresight, strangely, to leave something of a will,’ he was saying now, ‘a scrap of paper signed by a friend. In it, he indicated that, should anything happen to him, I should take guardianship of the child. I’m sure,’ Leo elaborated with scrupulous honesty, ‘that that particular light bulb idea had something to do with my financial worth.’
‘That’s very cynical of you.’ Sammy was still smarting from the realisation that while two perfectly good boyfriends hadn’t been able to get to her, this utterly inappropriate man seemingly could. At least if the crazy somersaulting in her stomach was anything to go by.
‘So I’m cynical.’ He shrugged and stared at her. ‘It’s a trait that’s always stood me in good stead.’
‘If Sean meant for you to have Adele, then what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is the harridan of a grandmother who’s decided to hire a lawyer to argue the case that I’m unfit to be the child’s guardian. A scrap of paper, she maintains, counts for nothing, especially considering my former stepbrother lived with a stash of alcohol and drugs within easy reach.’
Sammy didn’t say anything and Leo frowned because he could read what she was thinking as clearly as if her thoughts had been transcribed in neon lettering across her forehead.
‘The woman isn’t equipped to raise Adele,’ he grated. ‘Even if she had been an angel in human form, it would still be a big ask for her to take over the role of looking after an energetic five-year-old child. Had I felt that she might conceivably be mentally fit for the job then I’d back off, but she isn’t. At any rate, my father is distraught at this turn of events.’
‘He’s always mourned the fact that he never got to see her. He talked about that a lot to me and Mum.’
‘Yes, well...’ Somehow that simple statement of fact, which came as no shock at all to Leo, indicated a familiarity that was a little unsettling. ‘Here’s where we’re nearing the crux of the matter. I’ve been accused of having too many women and spending too much time out of the country.’ He raked his fingers through his hair and gestured in a manner that was redolent with frustration and impatience.
Sammy remained silent because, from all accounts, those were some pretty accurate accusations.
‘Well...’ she finally said. ‘I suppose there might be some truth in that. From everything I’ve heard, I mean, that’s to say...’
‘Please—’ Leo scowled darkly ‘—don’t let good manners stand in the way of saying what’s on your mind. I take it the rumours about me have come from my father?’
‘No!’
‘Do you three just sit around gossiping about my love life?’
‘No! You’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’
‘Have I? From the sounds of it, once my father has finished lamenting the fact that he’s been denied access to his “granddaughter,” he brings out the tea and biscuits and gets down to the gritty business of discussing my personal life!’
‘It’s not like that at all!’ Sammy was mortified at the picture he was painting. ‘Your dad mentioned ages ago that he wished he saw more of you and that you worked too hard. He worries about your health, that’s all.’
‘I’ve never had a day’s illness in my life.’
‘Working too hard can bring on all sorts of problems,’ Sammy said, fidgeting, her colour high. ‘Stress can be a killer. That’s what worries your dad.’
‘That being the case,’ Leo drawled, ‘he must know that I’m in no danger of collapsing from working too hard or being too stressed because I have my safety valves in the form of my very diverting playmates.’
Sammy’s breath caught in her throat, which was suddenly so dry that she could barely get her words out.
It struck Leo that those very diverting playmates were going to have to take a back seat, at least for the time being, and he was a little surprised that he didn’t feel more gutted at the prospect. He was a highly sexual man with a very energetic libido, but recently, beautiful and obliging women who were always willing to go the extra mile for him had left him dissatisfied.
His palate was jaded.
Perhaps now was a very good time to indulge in a fake engagement with a woman he had precisely nothing in common with. A couple of months pretending to be in love with someone who didn’t stand a chance of rousing his interest might be just the ticket. He would resume life with renewed vigour and things would be back to normal. And a bout of celibacy never killed anyone.
‘Which—’ he brought the conversation neatly back to the point at hand ‘—brings us back to the problem. I don’t, according to my father, make a credible guardian with my reputation, and I will be under scrutiny because I will be travelling to Melbourne to sort this situation out. Eyes will be on me. I need credibility—and here is where you come in. I need a fiancée to show my stability to the Melbourne courts and he’s suggested that you would be perfect for the part.’
Sammy stared at him. So that was what all of this was about. The ring. The proposal. It was so preposterous that she was torn between bursting into manic laughter and propelling him out of her flat.
She did neither. Instead, she said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding, right?’
‘As I’ve already told you, I have better things to do than show up here for a laugh. This is no joke, Samantha.’ He leaned forward and looked at her with utter seriousness. ‘My father refuses to accept that he may never see Adele. The fact that Sean was his stepson for a short period of time rather than his own flesh and blood and that any tenuous family connection they might have once had ended when he and Georgia divorced makes not a scrap of difference to him, but then he’s that kind of man, as I expect you already know. He sees this as his last chance to do something about the situation and he can’t understand any hesitancy on my part to leap aboard the plan.’
‘I’m not going to go with you to the other side of the world so that I can pretend to be your fiancée, Leo!’ Agitated, Sammy leapt to her feet and began pacing the room. Her thoughts were all over the place and her body was burning.
‘Why would you want me to be your fake fiancée, anyway?’ She spun round to look at him, hands on hips. ‘Why don’t you just pick one of those women from your little black book? You have enough to choose from! Every time I open a tabloid I seem to see you somewhere in the gossip columns with a glamour model hanging on to you for dear life.’
Leo’s eyebrows shot up and he gave her a slow, curling smile. ‘Follow me in the tabloids, do you?’
‘Trust you to put that spin on it,’ Sammy muttered under her breath, which seemed to amuse him further. ‘I won’t do it,’ she said flatly. ‘You can have your pick of any woman you want so go ahead and pick one of them.’
‘But none of them will do,’ Leo said smoothly and Sammy paused to frown.
‘Why not?’
He looked at her for a long while in perfect silence and it didn’t take her long to get the message.
‘Too glamorous,’ Sammy said slowly, while she pointlessly wished the ground would open and swallow her, disgorging her somewhere on the other side of the world. ‘You need someone plain and average, someone who would give the right image of a responsible other half, able to take on a young child.’
Accustomed to telling it like it was, Leo had the grace to flush. ‘The women I date would be inappropriate—’ he smoothed over the unvarnished bluntness of her statement ‘—it has nothing to do with looks.’
‘It has everything to do with looks,’ Sammy retorted, her voice shaking. ‘I want you to leave. Right now. I’d love to be able to help your father but I draw the line at being manipulated into playing the part of your dreary fiancée so that you can try and fool the authorities in Australia into believing that you’re a halfway decent guy with a few responsible bones in his body!’
Leo was outraged at the barrage of insults contained in that outburst. Halfway decent guy? A few responsible bones?
He stayed right where he was, a solid mass of sheer physical strength. He wasn’t going anywhere and she would be more than welcome to try and budge him if she wanted. She wouldn’t get far.
‘Leave!’ she snapped.
‘Sit,’ he returned.
‘How dare you come into my house and...and...?’
‘I’m not done with this conversation.’ Leo looked at her steadily and she gritted her teeth in impotent fury.
There was no way she could force him out. He was way too big and far too strong. And he knew it.
‘There’s nothing else to say,’ she told him in a frozen voice. ‘There’s no way you could persuade me to go along with your scheme.’ Those cruelly delivered words from when she was a teenager had rushed back towards her with the force of a freight train. As an awkward, self-conscious adolescent she hadn’t been his type and as a twenty-six-year-old woman she still wasn’t his type...
She didn’t care because, as it happened, he was no more her type than she was his, but it still hurt to have it shoved down her throat.
‘Sure about that?’
Sammy didn’t bother to answer. Her arms were still folded, her face was still a mask of resentment, her legs were still squarely apart as she continued to stare down at him.
He couldn’t have looked more relaxed.
She marvelled how someone who adored his father so much could actually be so odious, but then he was a high-flying businessman with no morals to speak of when it came to women so why was she surprised?
‘One hundred per cent sure,’ she threw at him.
‘Because I haven’t just popped along here to ask a favour without bringing something to the table...’
‘I don’t see what you could possibly bring to the table that could be of any interest to me.’
‘I like the moral high ground,’ he murmured in a voice that left her in no doubt that the moral high ground was the very last thing he liked. ‘But, in my experience, moral high grounds usually have their foundations built on sand. Why don’t you sit down and finish hearing me out? If, at the end of what I have to say, you’re still adamant that you want no part of this arrangement, then so be it. My father will be bitterly disappointed, but that’s life. He won’t be able to accuse me of not trying.’
Sammy hesitated. He wasn’t going anywhere. The wretched man was going to stay put until he had said what he had come to say—the whole speech and nothing but the whole speech.
Why waste time arguing?
She perched on the edge of the chair and waited for him to continue.
He was truly a beautiful human being, she thought. All raven-black hair and piercing black eyes and fantastically chiselled features. It was hardly the time to be thinking this, but she just couldn’t help herself.
Was it any wonder that there weren’t many women between the ages of twenty-one and ninety-one who wouldn’t have crashed into a lamp post to grab a second look?
She tried to imagine one of those women he dated trying to pass herself off as a suitable bride-to-be and, whilst it certainly worked from the gorgeous couple aspect, the whole thing fell apart the second a little girl was put in the equation.
‘Your mother hasn’t been well,’ Leo said quietly. ‘I’m sorry that this is the first time I’ve...commiserated.’
‘She’s going to be fine.’ Sammy tilted her chin at an angle but, as always when she thought about her mother, the tears were never very far away.
‘Yes. I’ve been told the chemotherapy has been successful and that the tumour has shrunk considerably. You must be relieved.’
‘I don’t understand what my mother has to do with any of this.’
‘Then I’ll come straight to the point.’ He hadn’t felt a single qualm when he had considered using money as leverage in this bartering process. This was the world he occupied. It was always a quid pro quo system.
Now, however, he was assailed by a sudden attack of conscience. Something about the way her eyes were glistening and the slight wobble of her full pink lips.
No wonder she and his father got on like a house on fire, he thought. They were equally sentimental.
It was yet another reason why the arrangement would work for them because her emotionalism was guaranteed to get on his nerves. There would be no chance of any lines between them getting blurred.
‘It would appear,’ he said heavily, ‘that there’s a problem with the mortgage repayments on the house your mother’s in.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘The same way you seem to have great insight into my personal life,’ he returned coolly. ‘Our respective parents seem to do an awful lot of confidence sharing. At any rate, the fact is that there is a real threat of the bank closing on the house if the late payments aren’t made soon.’
‘I’ve been to see the bank.’ Sammy’s skin burnt because she hated this sliver of her life being exposed. It was none of his business. ‘Mum’s had to give up her job, with all the treatment, and I’ve had to move to a different, more expensive place here because the landlord in my last place wanted to sell. Plus there’ve been all the additional costs of travelling back and forth every weekend, sometimes during the week, as well. I haven’t been able to contribute as much as I would have liked to the finances but they said they understood at the bank.’
‘Banks,’ Leo informed her kindly, ‘have never been noted for their understanding policies. They’re not charitable organisations. The most sympathetic bank manager, under instruction, will foreclose on a house with very little prior warning. I also appreciate that it costs you dearly to be working so far from your mother at a time when she needs you to be on hand.’
‘Your dad had no right to tell you all that stuff...’
‘Was any of it confidential information?’
Sammy didn’t reply. No, none of it was confidential, although sitting here right now and listening to him explain her life to her made her think that perhaps it ought to have been.
Naturally, he would never understand what it might be like to really have to count pennies and to struggle against all odds to meet the bills. He had been born into money and, even in the village, his name was legend as the guy who had built his own empire and turned it into a gold mine.
‘Didn’t think so. I know he offered to give your mother money to help her out of this little sticky patch but she refused.’
‘And I don’t blame her,’ Sammy said, her cheeks dully flushed. ‘There’s such a thing as pride.’
‘Yes. It usually comes before a fall. No matter. I get it. But the fact remains that you are both facing considerable financial challenges, so here is my proposal.’ He allowed anticipation to settle before continuing. ‘In return for your services, so to speak, I will settle all outstanding money owing on your mother’s house.’ He raised one hand as though she had interrupted although, in fact, she couldn’t have uttered a word if she’d wanted to. She was mesmerised by him. By the movement of his mouth as he spoke, by the steady flex of muscle discernible under his clothing, by the elegance of his gestures and the commanding timbre of his voice.
‘Furthermore,’ he continued, ‘I understand that your dream is to work freelance. Your degree was in graphic art and, whilst you do as much freelance work as you can get your hands on, it’s impossible to make the jump because you need to have a steady income.’
Sammy paled. ‘Now that,’ she burst out, ‘definitely was confidential!’
‘Is that some of your work over there?’ Leo nodded to a desk by the window and the layers of stiff board piled to one side. Without giving her time to answer, far less swoop to the rescue of the job she was currently trying to find the time to work on, he began rifling through the illustrations she had so far completed while she remained frozen to the spot, mouth open.
‘They’re good.’ Leo turned to face her. He was genuinely impressed. ‘Don’t glare at me as though I’ve exposed state secrets,’ he said drily. ‘This is the second part of my proposition. Not only am I willing to settle the debt on your mother’s house but I will also get builders in to construct a suitable extension at the back of the property.’
‘A suitable extension?’ Sammy said faintly.
‘To accommodate this—’ he gestured to the desk and the artwork he had just been rifling through ‘—you setting up your own business where your mother is. No more commuting. No more wasting money on rent you can barely afford. And not only that, Sammy, but I will immediately instigate a steady income that will cover the transition period between you giving up your teaching post here and establishing yourself in your field.’
Sammy was beginning to sympathise with anyone unfortunate enough to have been run over by a steamroller. ‘It’s a ridiculous suggestion...’ she protested, but she could hear telltale signs of weakness in her voice. ‘Go to Melbourne...? Pretend to be engaged to you...? It’s crazy.’
‘Perhaps if you just had yourself to consider,’ Leo pointed out with inexorable, irrefutable logic, ‘you could spend the next hour talking about your pride or maybe just chuck me out of here immediately, but this isn’t just about you. Your mother’s future is involved here, as well.’
‘And it’s not fair of you to drag her into this.’
‘Who said that life was fair? If life was fair, that harridan wouldn’t be trying to hang on to a granddaughter she probably doesn’t even want for the sake of what she thinks she might be able to coerce out of me. Agree to my proposal and I could have builders at the house first thing in the morning to ascertain what needs to be done. All you would have to do is hand your notice in and look forward to a life of no stress, close to your mother.’
Sammy thought of the amount of time she had spent trying to get the books to balance and trying to work out how many more hours she could put into her illustrations so that more income could be generated.
‘What happens if you get custody of the little girl?’ she questioned eventually, forcibly tearing herself away from that stress-free vision he had been dangling in front of her.
‘I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I can afford the very best day care, the very best schools and during the holidays there will be the option of spending time by the sea with my father.’
Sammy’s brow pleated and Leo felt he should jump in before she began testing the moral high ground once again.
‘I’m going to give you forty-eight hours to think about my proposition. Time for you to work out the nitty-gritty details and break the glad tidings to your mother, although there’s a fair to middling chance that she already knows that I’m here with you right now, thanks to my father. I’ll leave the engagement ring here. Try not to misplace it.’ He told her how much it had cost and her mouth fell open. ‘No point getting something cheap and nasty. You’d be surprised what a nosy reporter can spot through a telephoto lens. If you agree to this, no one must think that it’s anything but genuine.’
‘I may not agree to anything.’
‘Your call.’ He shrugged. ‘Just think about the trade-off.’ He stood up and glanced at his watch to find that far more time had gone by than he’d expected. ‘One more thing to consider...’
Sammy had scrambled to her feet but she was still keeping her distance. She wasn’t going to touch this offer with a bargepole. Was she? It smacked of blackmail and surely any form of deceit, however well intended, was a bad thing...
‘What’s that?’ She eyed him warily.
‘You asked why you’re perfect for this...arrangement.’ He kept his eyes fixed on her face as he began putting on his coat. ‘You understand the rules. I don’t mean the rules that involve pretending—I mean the rules that dictate that this isn’t for real. You’re not one of my women who might get it into their heads that a fake engagement might turn into a real engagement.’
‘No. I’m not.’ Because there was no way he would ever consider getting engaged for real to someone like her. She’d never wanted to slap someone as much as she had spent the past couple of hours wanting to slap him.
‘So we’re on the same page,’ Leo drawled, tilting his head at her. ‘Always a good thing. I’ll be in touch for your decision.’
‘You’re going to traipse all the way back here...?’
‘Oh, no. I’ll call you. And no need to give me your mobile number. I already have it.’ He allowed himself a mocking half smile. ‘I look forward to talking to you soon...my wife-to-be.’
