Читать книгу A Scandalous Marriage - Miranda Lee - Страница 7

‘MUM, this is terrible,’ Natalie said. ‘How on earth did you and Dad let your finances get into such a mess?’

Even as she asked the question Natalie already knew the answer. Her father had always been attracted to get-rich-quick schemes. He wasn’t a gambler in the ordinary sense of the word. He didn’t waste money at casinos or on the racetrack, but he was a sucker for the kind of investment or business idea that sounded too good to be true, and usually was.

Natalie hadn’t realised what a poor businessman he’d been when she’d been growing up. She’d never lacked for anything. As an only child, she’d actually been rather spoilt.

It wasn’t till Natalie had grown up that she’d realised her parents lived mainly on credit.

She’d been helping her mother out with her housekeeping budget for quite some time—slipping her a hundred dollars or so every time they saw each other. But now, it seemed that things had really hit rock-bottom. Her father could no longer continue with his latest venture—a lawn-mowing franchise he’d foolishly borrowed money on top of his already hefty mortgage to buy, and which required a fit young man to run.

Natalie’s dad was reasonably fit. But he was fifty-seven.

Last month, he’d fallen and broken his ankle.

Naturally, he hadn’t taken out any income-protection insurance. What sane insurance company would have given it to him, anyway?

The bank was threatening to repossess their house if they didn’t meet their mortgage, which was already running months in arrears. Natalie could cover a couple of months’ payments, but not the many thousands of dollars they were behind.

Which meant her parents would shortly have no money and no place to live.

Natalie shuddered at the thought of having them live with her. She was thirty-four years of age, long past the time when you enjoyed living with your parents.

On top of that, she ran her business from home, using one of the two bedrooms in her terraced house as an office-cum-computer room, and her downstairs living room as her reception and interviewing area.

Things would get very difficult with two more adults in the place. Especially two miserable ones.

‘Don’t you worry, dear,’ her mother said. ‘I’m going to get a job.’

Natalie rolled her eyes. Her mother was as big a dreamer as her father. She hadn’t been properly employed for over twenty years. She’d been busy helping her silly husband with all his crazy schemes. On top of that, she was even older than Natalie’s dad.

No one was going to employ a fifty-nine-year-old woman with no certifiable qualifications.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Mum,’ Natalie said more sharply than she intended. ‘It’s not that easy to get a job at your age.’

‘I’m going to do cleaning. Your father ran off some fliers on that old computer and printer you gave him and I put them in every postbox in the neighbourhood.’

Natalie wanted to cry. It wasn’t right that her mother had to become a cleaner at her age.

‘Mum, I could get a second mortgage on this place,’ Natalie offered. ‘It’s gone up quite a bit in value since I bought it.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her mother said firmly. ‘We’ll be fine. I don’t want you to worry.’

Then why did you tell me? Natalie groaned silently.

The sound of her doorbell ringing brought Natalie back to her own life. ‘Mum, can I ring you back later? I have a client at the door.’ Her first in a fortnight. Business at Wives Wanted had dropped off a bit this past month. She hadn’t had any new female clients, either. Maybe it was time for another series of magazine ads. It was a rare business that could survive on word of mouth alone.

‘You go, dear. But do ring me back later.’

‘I will. I promise.’

Natalie hung up quickly, buttoning up her suit jacket as she rose and headed for the front door.

A quick glance in the hallway mirror as she passed by assured her she looked every inch the professional businesswoman. Her thick auburn hair was pulled back tightly into a French pleat. Her make-up was minimal and her jewellery discreet. Just a slimline gold wrist-watch and simple gold studs in her ears.

It wasn’t till her hand reached for the knob that Natalie wondered what Mr Mike Stone looked like.

He’d been referred to her by Richard Crawford, a merchant banker who’d been a client of Wives Wanted earlier this year. Natalie suspected, however, that Mr Stone wasn’t in the banking business. He hadn’t sounded like executive material over the phone. He’d sounded less polished than Richard Crawford. Hopefully, that didn’t mean less rich. Most of her male clients were well-off, professional men.

But beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially not right now. If Mr Stone was willing to pay a few thousand for her to find him a wife, then he could be a truck driver for all she cared.

Better, however, if he were a rich truck driver.

Most of her girls weren’t in the market for working-class husbands.

Natalie turned the knob and opened the front door, her eyes widening when she saw the man standing on her doorstep.

Never, during the three years she’d been running Wives Wanted, had she had a client quite like this.

He wouldn’t have looked totally out of place behind the wheel of a truck, she supposed. Not if it was an army truck and he was wearing a military uniform instead of the jeans and black leather jacket he was currently wearing.

Mike Stone was soldier material through and through.

Not an ordinary soldier, Natalie decided as her assessing gaze travelled all the way up his impressive body to his hard, dark eyes and close-cropped brown hair. A commando, one of those highly trained soldiers who went on covert missions and killed people without making a sound or turning a hair’s breadth.

He wasn’t classically good-looking. His features lacked symmetry. His nose had obviously been broken at one stage and his mouth was way too cruel.

But, for all that, Natalie found him extremely attractive.

Natalie smothered an inner sigh of frustration, at the same time making sure that not a single hint of interest showed on her face.

Ever since she could remember, Natalie had been attracted to men like this. Men who didn’t fit the conventional mould. Men who exuded an air of danger. Men who both intrigued and aroused her.

Ten years ago, she would have gone openly gaga over this guy. Today, the inner twanging of her female antennae irritated the life out of her.

‘Ms Fairlane?’ he enquired, his rough, gravelly voice matching his appearance.

‘Yes,’ she returned, annoyed with the way her heart was racing. And with the way he was looking her up and down, his expression somewhat surprised. What on earth had Richard Crawford told him about her?

‘Mike Stone,’ he said at last, and held out his hand.

She hesitated before she placed her own hand in his, steeling herself not to react to his touch in any way.

But when his large male fingers closed firmly around her much smaller, softer hand, there it was.

That spark. That automatic zap of sexual chemistry, running up her arm, leaving goose-bumps in the wake of its highly charged current.

Thank God her jacket had long sleeves, and that she had anticipated something like this.

‘Pleased to meet you, Mr Stone,’ she said, her outer coolness belying her inner heat. If she’d met Mike Stone anywhere else, she would have walked away. No, she would have run. But she could hardly do so at this moment. He was a potential paying client. A potential five grand in her pocket. Money she was in desperate need of today.

‘Mike,’ he said. ‘Call me Mike.’

‘Mike,’ she repeated, her mouth pulling back into a plastic smile. ‘Well, come on in, Mike,’ she said, waving him past her into the hallway. ‘The first room on the left. Go right in and find a place to sit.’

Natalie pressed herself hard against the wall as he stepped inside. No way did she want his broad-shouldered body accidentally brushing against her chest as he walked along the narrow hallway. But once he did move safely past her, she watched his back view far too avidly and for far too long before she pulled herself together and flung the front door shut, rolling her eyes at herself as she followed him into the living room.

By this time he was settling himself in the middle of her sofa, his long legs stretching out in front of him whilst he leant back and glanced around.

Natalie knew it was an oddly furnished room, filled with pieces that didn’t match but that she personally liked. There were three large squashy armchairs covered in an assortment of prints, plus a seductively long brown velvet sofa, which stretched across under the front window and on which her client had just made himself very comfortable.

On the wall opposite the sofa was a state-of-the-art home theatre system, which she was still paying for. The wall to the right of her visitor had built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, in front of which sat an ancient mahogany desk, with the latest laptop sitting on one end and an old-fashioned green desk lamp on the other. The floor was polished boxwood, a colourful circular rug providing warmth and a touch of the orient.

There was no coffee-table to bump into, just an assortment of side tables in all shapes and sizes on which sat ornaments and curios bought from flea markets and garage sales. Two standing lamps with gold-fringed lampshades flanked the sofa, providing subtle light at night when she was watching TV.

A friend had once commented to Natalie that the décor of her living room was very much as she was. Hard to pin down.

‘You’re very punctual,’ she said brusquely, glancing at her watch as she headed for the upright chair behind her desk. It was right on five, the time they’d agreed upon for his interview.

‘I’m always punctual when I’m not working,’ he replied.

Natalie ground to an instant halt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sharply. ‘But I don’t take on male clients who are unemployed.’

Again, he looked her up and down, his expression this time annoyingly unreadable.

‘I didn’t say I was unemployed. I said I wasn’t working at the moment. I am self-employed. I own a computer software company.’

Natalie could not have been more surprised. He didn’t look at all like a man who spent most of his life sitting at a computer. He was far too fit-looking. Far too tanned.

As Brandon had been.

His reminding her of Brandon sent her irritation meter up even higher.

‘I see,’ she bit out. ‘Sorry,’ she added before proceeding over to her desk, where she sat down and turned on the laptop.

Natalie took her time pulling up the page into which she would enter his personal details and requirements, not looking up till she was good and ready.

‘So what happens where you are working?’ she finally asked.

‘I sometimes don’t show up at all,’ he returned.

Charming, she thought.

It seemed men who looked like this were true to type.

Brandon had never been on time for anything. There again, Brandon had had lots of reasons for running late for his dates with her. Or for not showing up at all.

His job as an anti-terrorist agent for one. Plus the wife and two children that she’d never known he had, came the added caustic thought.

She wondered what Mike Stone’s excuse was.

‘Sounds like you’re a workaholic.’

‘It’s not the first time I’ve been called that,’ he replied with an indifferent shrug.

Natalie liked him less with each passing second. ‘Is that why you haven’t had much luck finding a wife so far?’ she asked rather waspishly.

‘No. I could have married any number of women.’

‘Really.’ Natalie added outrageously arrogant to his rapidly increasing list of flaws.

Finding Mike Stone a wife was going to prove difficult, despite his impressively masculine physique. Her girls all wanted amenable husbands, not up-themselves egotists. Most of them had had unhappy relationships in the past, with difficult and selfish men who hadn’t delivered. By the time they came to her, they usually knew exactly what they wanted, and had no intention of settling for anything less.

Natalie suspected that the likes of Mike Stone would not find favour with any of them.

But it wasn’t her problem if none of her girls wanted to marry him. She charged her male clients five thousand dollars up front, whether they found a wife at Wives Wanted, or not.

For his money, Mr Stone would be matched and introduced to five very attractive and intelligent women who fitted his criteria the best, and vice versa. After that, it was up to him.

But he’d have to show a bit more charm on a date than he was currently showing if he wanted a wife. Just being sexy was not enough for her once-bitten, twice-shy girls.

Still, that wasn’t her problem.

‘Since you own a computer software company, Mike,’ she said matter-of-factly, ‘you’ll be familiar with the type of program I use to match up my clients. It’s quite basic, really. Mine, however, does have a security check built in, which validates that my clients are exactly who they say they are. I presume you have no objection to that?’

‘Nope.’

‘Good. Let’s get started, then. Your full name.’

‘Mike Stone.’

‘No, your full name,’ she said, a touch of exasperation creeping into her voice. ‘The name that’s on your birth certificate and driving licence.’

‘Mike Stone.’

Natalie gritted her teeth. ‘Not Michael?’

‘Just Mike.’

‘Fine. Your address and phone number, please? Mobile as well.’

She typed them in as he rattled them off, thinking to herself that his address of an apartment in Glebe could be good news or bad news. Glebe had become a trendy suburb of late. Its proximity to the inner city and Sydney University was highly valued. But some parts of it were still a bit dumpy.

‘Your work address?’

‘I work from home.’

Oh-oh. Now that was definitely bad news. Okay, so there were some small businesses that were quite successful. But not too many.

‘Age,’ she said.

‘Thirty-four.’

Now her eyebrows lifted. She’d thought him older. There was a wealth of life’s experience within those eyes.

‘I’ll be thirty-five in December,’ he added. ‘December the fifteenth.’

‘So you’re a Sagittarius,’ she said as she tapped in that information.

‘I don’t believe in crap like that.’

‘Really.’ She should have known. Brandon had said something very similar when she’d claimed the stars deemed them a reasonable match. She was a Virgo, which wasn’t a bad match with a Scorpio.

But Natalie wished she’d taken notice of the part that said Scorpio was the sign of dark secrets.

‘Marital status?’ she went on.

‘What?’

‘Have you ever been married?’

‘Nope.’

‘Lots of my clients have been,’ she remarked.

‘Not me, sweetheart.’

Natalie stiffened before shooting him a wintry glance. ‘My name is Natalie,’ she said in a voice that would have cut frozen butter. ‘Not sweetheart.’

His black eyes glittered for a moment, as though her correction amused him. ‘My mistake. Sorry.’

She could see he wasn’t. Not at all. But at least she’d made her stand. She couldn’t bear men who called women generic names liked sweetheart and honey. It was condescending and demeaning.

‘Well, nothing has come back to say that you’re not who you say you are,’ she told him after a few seconds’ wait. Neither was there a warning that he’d ever been arrested, or in prison. ‘Now on to your physical description. I can see for myself that your hair is dark brown and very short, and that your eyes are black.’

‘They’re not black. They’re dark brown. They just look black because they’re deeply set.’

Deeply set and infuriatingly sexy.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Height?’

‘Six four. Six five, maybe.’

‘What’s that in centimetres?’

‘Lord knows.’

‘Never mind. I’ll put six five. I’m five ten and you’re a good bit taller than me.’

For weight/bodytype, she typed in ‘fit and muscly’. She wasn’t the only female in the world who liked well-built men.

‘Do you smoke?’

‘Nope.’

‘Do you drink?’

He laughed. ‘Do ducks swim?’

‘How much do you drink?’

‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘On whether I’m working or not. I don’t drink when I’m working.’

Natalie sighed. ‘And when you’re not?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m a scotch man. But I like a nice red with evening meals and a cold beer on a hot day.’

‘Would you classify yourself as a problem drinker?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Hobbies.’

‘Hobbies?’ he repeated.

‘What do you enjoy doing during your leisure hours?’ she asked, and looked up from the laptop.

Their eyes met momentarily before his left her face to drift down to where her jacket was straining across her breasts.

‘Besides that,’ she snapped.

His eyes narrowed on her, and she wondered if he was wondering why she was letting him get under her skin so much.

‘I like to work out,’ he replied. ‘And to go out.’

‘Where to?’

‘Clubs. Pubs. Wherever I can have a drink with my mates and meet women.’

He’d have no trouble picking up women, Natalie conceded. He wouldn’t even have to speak. His hard, sexy body and those hard, sexy eyes would do all the talking for him.

‘Are you a good lover?’

The question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. It was not one of her usual questions. But, thankfully, he didn’t know that.

‘I’ve never had any complaints,’ came his nonchalant reply.

She almost asked him how much sex he would want from his wife, but she pulled herself up just in time. She’d already overstepped the mark.

‘Religion?’ she asked instead.

‘Nope.’

‘An atheist?’

‘Nope.’

‘What, then?’ she asked through gritted teeth.

‘The Lord and I haven’t had much to do with each other so far, but who knows what the future might hold?’

‘Fine. I’ll put open-minded on the subject of religion. Education?’

‘Not much.’

‘Could you be more specific than that?’

‘I attended school till I was seventeen, but I didn’t sit for my school certificate or my HSC. I’ve never been to college or university. I’m a self-taught computer genius.’

‘Genius? My, let’s not be too modest here.’

‘I’m not being modest. I’m saying it as it is.’

‘Fine. But I think I’ll enter computer expert. You wouldn’t want to put off a potential wife by sounding a little…shall we say…arrogant?’

‘I’m not arrogant. I’m honest. But put what you like.’

She intended to. Lord, but he was the most irritating man. ‘What’s the name of your software company?’

‘Stoneware.’

‘Stoneware?’ She rolled her eyes at him.

‘The name amused me,’ he said, and actually smiled.

Not a big smile. More a lifting of the corner of his mouth.

‘You do have a sense of humour, then?’

‘It’s not one of my best qualities.’

‘Somehow I gathered that,’ she muttered. ‘Now, Mike, I will understand if you do not want to give me a precise figure, but approximately what is your annual income?’

‘I don’t mind telling you. Last year Stoneware made six point four million dollars profit. I own seventy per cent of the company, so my share was four point four eight million. I expect this next year to be a much better year, however.’

Natalie swallowed her surprise and said, ‘How much better?’

‘A lot better,’ he replied drily. ‘We released a couple of new games which have really taken off.’

‘I see.’

‘I presume that improves my chances of finding a wife?’

His question—and his tone—had a decidedly cynical flavour, which ruffled Natalie’s feathers.

‘Money alone will not secure you a wife from amongst my girls,’ she told him crisply.

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘Pity.’

‘What does that mean?’

He stared hard at her, making her squirm on her chair.

‘You know, you’re not quite what I expected,’ was his next, rather cryptic comment, ‘but I can see you’re still a no-nonsense businesswoman. Like I said, I’m a truthful man. I don’t like to con people. I also don’t have the time to muck around. The thing is, Ms Fairlane,’ he continued as he sat forward on the sofa, his elbows coming to rest on his knees, ‘I need a wife before the first week in December.’