Читать книгу Claiming His Bride - Vivienne Wallington, Vivienne Wallington - Страница 10

As Mack swung his bike into the narrow driveway of his modest weatherboard home, which he’d inherited from his mother about five years ago, Suzie felt herself trembling again. Not with reaction this time, or even with cold—Mack’s jacket had saved her from catching a mortal chill—but with a shivery apprehension.

She’d been to Mack’s house a few times during the roller-coaster months they’d been together—or more accurately, seeing each other. They’d never actually been together in that sense, though it had come close a few times and would undoubtedly have happened if Mack hadn’t shattered her faith in him—albeit blind, rebellious faith—by showing that he possessed the same destructive traits that had wrecked her father’s life.

Her mother had mistrusted Mack from the start and warned her to keep right away from him. Suzie had known in her heart that Ruth was right about him, that he was the last man in the world she should be seeing, let alone falling for, but try as she might she hadn’t been able to keep away from him. Until that awful night three years ago—the night Mack had demonstrated, with painful clarity, that he was no different from her father.

Disillusioned, she’d refused to see him again, refused his phone calls, even refused to speak to him when he’d turned up at her father’s funeral a few months later. She’d wanted to make it clear to Mack that whatever they’d shared together was now dead, and that she was severing all connections with him.

“We’re here now, Suzie, you can let go of me,” Mack drawled, and she realized they’d pulled up near his front steps and that she was still clinging to him. She released him as if her hands were suddenly on fire, and scrambled off the big machine, groaning as she looked down at her mud-spattered ivory satin high heels and the soaked skirt of her elegant wedding gown.

“My dress and shoes are ruined!” she moaned. “Haven’t you ever thought of buying a car?”

“And give up my Harley?” Mack grinned at her through the rain. In the glow of his porch light, drops of water beaded his heavy eyebrows and thick lashes, giving his dark eyes a pearly sheen. “Come on inside, Suzie, out of this rain. We’ll have to get these things off. We’re both soaked.” His wet T-shirt clung to his muscled chest like a second skin.

We’ll have to get these things off? Alarm shot through her. “I’ll be fine,” she babbled, wondering why she’d ever agreed to come to his home with him. Was she mad? This wasn’t a real marriage, for heaven’s sake! They’d agreed it wasn’t going to last. “Your jacket has kept me nice and dry and warm,” she mumbled.

“Only the top half of you.” He was still grinning, damn him, as he surveyed her sodden gown and shoes. “But I can’t see your wedding dress surviving somehow. I hope you’re not having second thoughts about marrying Tristan when you’re both free again, assuming he ever gets his divorce, of course!”

She almost snapped back, “No, I’m not!” but she caught the words back, scowling instead. A bit of doubt on Mack’s part might be a good thing. As a protective device. Mack had supreme powers of persuasion, as he’d demonstrated before when she’d been determined to keep away from him. Until he’d shown his true colors on that last soul-destroying night, and she’d made it quite clear to him that he was out of her life for good.

But she still wasn’t immune to him, she realized in dismay. Not entirely immune. Having to keep her body pressed up against him all the way to his home, and her arms wrapped tightly around him, had shown her that. The feel of his taut muscles under her hands had sent her heartbeat haywire and her pulses soaring, and even now she could still feel her nerve endings twitching. She would have to be well and truly on her guard against him, every second she spent with him.

As Mack whisked her up the rickety front steps to the shelter of his small covered porch, she fingered her wet tangle of curls and wondered ruefully what Tristan would have thought of her smooth, sleek hair sprouting rebellious curls before his eyes. Would he have laughed, and loved her just as much? Or would he have sent her off to have her hair professionally, permanently, straightened?

She simply didn’t know. What madness had made her want to rush into marriage with a man she didn’t really know? A man she’d only known for three months?

It had been nothing but a dream. And dreams weren’t real. Fairy tales weren’t real.

She heard a thud, and then another, and realized that Mack was tugging off his boots. As he peeled off his socks, revealing dark-skinned bare feet, she gulped and looked away, kicking off her own mud-spattered satin shoes.

Mack unlocked his front door and waved her in. “I’m glad to see your curls are back, Suzie,” he commented as he led her into the front room—a combined sitting room and workroom—and switched on the overhead light. Only one of the three bulbs was working—typical of Mack Chaney, Suzie thought, glancing upward. On her past visits here, he’d often overlooked practical household basics, his mind too absorbed, no doubt, with the Internet and his latest brilliant idea.

But at least the lighting was softer than it would have been with all three bulbs working!

“What on earth did you do to your hair before?” Mack asked, fingering a stray damp curl. He was thinking how cute she looked with her wet curls clustered round her cheeks, and how dewy and moist and kissable her lips looked, and how she’d die if she knew she had mascara running down her face. “And why?”

Suzie jerked her face away. “I needed a change.” No way would she tell him the real reason she’d dispensed with her curls—to impress Tristan Guthrie on the night of the Gown of the Year awards. Tristan, as head of the Guthrie Leather Goods empire, one of the sponsors for the event, had presented the main award.

Knowing he’d be there, her mother had urged Suzie to make an effort to look more elegant and sophisticated in the hope that her daughter would catch the eye of the eligible young bachelor. Dolled up in her award-winning gown, with her new sleek hairstyle and ladylike demeanor, Suzie had done her mother proud. Tristan had had eyes for no one else all night—or for the following three months.

“I had it straightened, that’s all,” she said with a shrug. “Every woman likes a new look occasionally.”

“Why change what’s perfect already?”

A tremor quivered through her. Mack was the only one who’d ever thought her perfect as she was. Everyone else preferred her new sleek-haired, sophisticated look—her mother, her workmates at Jolie Fashions, Tristan, his snooty mother.

“And you don’t need all that eye makeup and mascara,” Mack chided. “You’re too fair. It looks unnatural.”

“Tristan liked me like this.” He’d never taken a second look at the natural Suzie. He’d come to Jolie Fashions once to pick up his mother after a fitting, and he’d walked straight past her without a glance.

“He should have liked you as you really are.”

She twitched a shoulder. He never noticed me as I really was.

Mack reached up to brush a finger over her cheek. “Your mascara has run,” he mocked softly. “The hazards of makeup. Still, I’m sure Tristan appreciated your glamorous new look.” His dark eyes taunted her. “He’d like the cool, sophisticated ice-maiden look, from what I found out about him. Nothing too hot or passionate or unbridled for our straitlaced golden boy.”

He was so close to the mark that she forgot she hadn’t intended to let him get under her skin, and she lost her cool. “From what you found out about him?” she lashed back. “I still can’t believe you actually had the nerve to check up on my fiancé’s past—just on a vague, spiteful hunch!” She was too incensed to acknowledge that if he hadn’t, he would never have discovered and exposed Tristan’s secret marriage, and she would be the wife of a bigamist by now.

“There was nothing spiteful about it. I was merely looking out for your welfare. But we can discuss your errant ex-fiancé when you have a soothing drink in your hand. And when you’ve removed those wet things.”

She flinched away from him. “Oh…you mean your jacket.” She hurriedly slipped it off and handed it back to him. “Thanks.” She paused, glancing down. “I don’t suppose it matters that I’m leaving muddy splotches and watery drops on your carpet. How long since you’ve had it cleaned? Sometime last century?” She screwed up her nose in distaste at the stained, threadbare carpet.

“Oh, that old thing, it’ll be going soon.”

Yeah, I’ll bet, Suzie thought. And pigs might fly. She was still frowning at the carpet. “What did you do—hold a wild party in here? What are these stains—red wine? Or did someone get stabbed?”

His lip quirked. “It’s grease. I took my bike apart in here and made a bit of a mess.”

She rolled her eyes. “Heavens, Mack,” she exclaimed, looking around the room properly for the first time, “this whole room’s a mess. It’s a disgrace.”

There were piles of papers and cardboard cartons stacked on the floor, and more cluttering the tables and desktops, where a computer and keyboard were just visible. The armchairs had newspapers and computer magazines strewn all over them. “Don’t you ever tidy your house? Or do any cleaning?”

“I’ve been busy. I’m not going to die because of a bit of dust or a few messy papers and boxes. Besides, nobody sees the mess but me.”

“I’m seeing it.”

“Since when did a bit of mess bother you, Suzie?” His dark eyes glinted. “There was a time when you only noticed me, and the chemistry that flared between us every time we looked at each other. And we had more than just chemistry going for us.”

Suzie wanted to stop him, but his next words brought such nostalgic memories flooding back that they formed a lump in her throat, making speech impossible.

“Remember how we used to love listening to the band concerts and feeding the pigeons in Hyde Park, Suzie? And watching the yacht races on Sydney Harbour at weekends? And how we loved a good joke? And talking about everything under the sun? Music, sports, politics, books, movies, our dreams, our ambitions?”

She unlocked her throat. “Pipe dreams, in your case!” Her heart rate had picked up to a disturbing degree at his reminder of three years ago, and scorn seemed the best way to cover her turmoil. “You were always full of talk about what you were going to do with your life when your brilliant ideas hit the jackpot and you made tons of money, but I don’t see any sign that you’ve become rich and famous in the past three years!”

She raked a disparaging look around. “Nothing’s changed, has it, Mack? When I first met you, you’d just thrown in a perfectly good job and dropped out of university, and you’ve never knuckled down to a proper job since as far as I can see—let alone hit a jackpot!”

No, nothing’s changed, she thought, stifling a sigh. He’s just like my father. All his dreams of becoming rich and famous—in his case with his paintings—had come to nothing, too.

Mack gave a snort. “What was the point in staying at uni? I knew more about computers and programming than my lecturers. And the job I had with that computer firm was leading nowhere. And I have been working since then. Every time I sit down at my computer I’m working.”

“Playing games,” she scoffed.

“Inventing new games,” he corrected. “New programs. New software.”

“That nobody’s interested in!”

She would never have been so harsh or so discouraging three years ago—she would have put his failures down to being ahead of his time and urged him to keep trying—but she was still bitter at the way Mack had killed her trust in him on that last traumatic night, revealing a side of him she’d never seen, and never wanted to see again.

“So little faith!” Mack sighed. He seemed amused rather than devastated, she noted in exasperation. “How you’ve changed, Suzie. You encouraged me once.”

“Until I realized you were just like my father…living on your dreams and never facing reality,” she retorted. Didn’t he even care? “You’re going to end up just like him, with nothing to show for your life.” And look what that had done to her father.

“Is that why you cut me out of your life as if I’d never existed?”

She avoided his eyes. She’d never told him the full extent of her father’s sins. She’d only mentioned his depression, his drinking and the frustrations of a brilliant artist with a tortured soul. Both she and her mother had always tried to cover up her father’s destructive gambling, to protect the self-esteem of the man they’d both loved to the end. Loved, hated and despaired of.

“I was only nineteen,” she defended herself. “I was still a student. I had my career to concentrate on. I—I didn’t want to get involved with—with anyone.”

“Especially not with me.”

“All right—especially not with you! And you were never really in my life, so stop twisting the facts. We were never together. We were just friends.”

“Do you kiss all your friends with the passion you used to kiss me?”

The memory of their passion—the wild, steaming passion that had flared between them every time they’d looked at each other, every time they’d touched, and especially when they’d kissed—brought a remembered heat to her body. She seized on anger to douse it.

“How dare you throw my adolescent mistakes back at me, today of all days! And it was only a few kisses. You make it sound as if it were a grand passion.” Damn it, it was once…to her. It could have been—if he’d been less like her father, if he’d been able to resist the temptations her father had succumbed to. She could still see the elated look in Mack’s eyes the night he’d come home from the casino rolling in money and reeking of whiskey. She blinked the bitter memory away.

Something shimmered in Mack’s dark eyes, but he said nothing, moving to a corner cabinet to extract a half-empty bottle of Scotch and two glasses. Suzie compressed her lips. So he still drank whiskey!

He poured some into both glasses and handed her one. “Here, sip this while I fetch you something to change into. I don’t possess a dressing gown, but I might have a tracksuit that’ll do. You’d better have a hot shower and get out of that wet garb before you get pneumonia.”

He strode from the room before she could argue.

She took a gulp of her whiskey and coughed. She hated whiskey and rarely touched it, remembering what alcohol had done to her father. And Mack could end up the same way, if he kept on drinking. But this, she told herself, was medicinal! She took another more determined gulp, taking comfort from the hot spirit as it coursed a fiery path down her throat.

Mack came back as she was about to take another reviving sip. He hadn’t wasted time changing and was still wearing his wet T-shirt and black leather pants.

“Here. This will have to do.” He handed her a gray tracksuit. “It has a drawstring waist, so you should be able to keep the pants up.”

She had a strange sense of déjà vu. Mack had been wearing a similar gray tracksuit—maybe even this one—the day she’d first met him. Like most things about Mack, their meeting had been dramatic and unconventional.

Her boss had sent her to a house in Mack’s street to deliver a new outfit to a client. She’d borrowed one of the company cars, which she wasn’t familiar with. Worse, it was a manual, not an automatic. As she was about to drive off after making the delivery, she’d reversed the car by mistake and had collided with Mack as he careered out of his front gate on his Harley—far too fast to stop in time, and looking in the opposite direction.

It was only a glancing blow, but Mack had come off his bike and crashed to the pavement. She’d jumped out of the car and rushed to him, her heart in her mouth, horrified to see blood all over his face. It was only a nosebleed, she’d discovered, but at first glance it had looked far worse. She’d insisted on taking him inside his house to tend to his wounds.

He’d been more apologetic than she had, berating himself for not wearing a protective helmet. He’d only been planning to ride up his street and back, he’d told her ruefully, to test some work he’d just done on his bike.

He’d been lucky. Very lucky.

So had she. Her stupid mistake could have killed him!

“Suzie?” Mack’s voice penetrated her musings, and she realized he’d just said something to her.

“Oh, sorry. What did you say?”

“I just said, you know where the bathroom is.” His dark eyes seemed to swallow her up, as if he were remembering their first meeting, too.

He turned away to pick up the glass of whiskey he’d poured for himself, tossing the contents down at a gulp, bringing a frown to her brow as the devil-may-care action reminded her of her father’s reckless drinking.

“I’ll change while you’re showering, Suzie,” he said as he led the way, “and then I’ll make us some coffee.”

She opened her mouth to tell him not to bother about coffee, that she wouldn’t be here long enough, but she snapped her mouth shut again. Where would she go? She couldn’t go home yet—her mother could be home by now, and she didn’t want to face her mother again tonight. She didn’t feel up to fielding questions or dealing with sympathy.

Mack certainly wouldn’t be offering her any sympathy.

He didn’t. His first words, after they’d settled into armchairs in the front room—she noted he’d removed the newspapers and magazines while she was in the shower—were, “What were you thinking of, Suzie, getting mixed up with a pampered pussycat like Tristan Guthrie? The jerk has no conscience and no backbone—obviously. And he’s never worked for anything in his life, as you must know—he inherited his money and his business success. He didn’t have to lift a finger.”

His voice dropped to a husky drawl. “As for passion—I don’t think he’d know the word, would he?”

As her breath caught, he leaned forward in his chair, his coffee mug cradled in his hands. He’d changed into faded blue jeans and a black polo shirt, which made him look marginally less tough than his black leather gear, while just as disturbingly masculine. But what he was saying was even more disturbing. She didn’t want to talk about passion!

“You must realize what an escape you’ve had, Suzie. Tristan Guthrie would have bored you to death. He’s far too weak and wishy-washy for a passionate—” he paused as Suzie’s eyes flew to his, sparking with hot blue fire. “—sorry…for an independent, strong-minded woman like you,” he amended.

“Is that why you checked up on him?” she snapped. “Because you thought he wasn’t right for me and you hoped you’d find some embarrassing skeleton in his closet?”

He didn’t deny it. “He struck me as too smooth, too smug, too picture-perfect. He didn’t ring true. I decided to dig around a bit and find out more about him.”

“You must have dug really hard…and deep…and low.” Her eyes told him just how low she thought him, for thinking of delving into her fiancé’s past in the first place—rightly or wrongly. Who did he think he was? Her keeper?

“I did. I checked records, spoke to people and finally found one of his fellow university students from ten years ago who mentioned this foreign woman he was with for a while. I delved a bit deeper and picked up rumors of overseas students marrying secretly to stay in the country. I thought it was worth following up. I examined marriage records, and bingo! Tristan Guthrie, large as life. But there was no record of any divorce.”

He settled back in his armchair with a satisfied smirk. Then, as if the whole sordid scandal was now explained, dealt with and behind them, he commented easily, “I’m glad to see you looking yourself again, Suzie. The curls, the natural face. You don’t need all that artifice and makeup. You’re beautiful without it. And I must say you look very fetching in my track-suit.”

Did she realize, he wondered, that it was the same tracksuit he’d been wearing when she’d knocked him off his bike on the day they first met? Not just off his bike—she’d knocked him off his entire axis. Through a whirl of stars, he’d found himself drowning in the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, eyes full of anxiety and compassion—for him. And when she’d opened her mouth to speak, his bedazzled gaze had settled on full, lush lips that had begged to be kissed—only he’d been in no position to kiss them, with blood pouring from his nose and a throbbing pain in his head.

Once she’d helped him inside, mopped him up and made him feel half-human again, she’d gone back to work—but not before he’d asked if he could call on her later to thank her properly. He still remembered the way she’d blushed and nodded.

Yeah, he’d been smitten all right. And not just by her looks. Young and innocent as she’d been, she’d possessed a maturity and a toughness beyond her years. He’d sensed hidden depths and hidden pain, yet her natural humor, her cheeky wit, kept bubbling to the surface.

Everything about her fascinated him. She was a heady mixture of mystery, allure, vulnerability, ambition and an awesome inner strength that he suspected had something to do with her home life, which he’d gathered had been pretty rough. She’d never liked to talk about it, though she’d dropped the occasional hint now and then—usually at times when she flounced out of his life, comparing him with her no-good father.

He and Suzie had had more breakups in the months they’d been seeing each other than he could remember. And just as many reunions—until she’d walked out on him for good, without a proper explanation.

And now here she was, back in his life again. Married to him, while it lasted. Whether it did or not could be up to him.

“Mm…very fetching,” he repeated, unable to take his eyes off her.

Suzie shivered under the hot sweep of his gaze. “Oh, sure.” She gave a snort, but she could feel her cheeks heating, her skin prickling under the gray fabric. “It’s about a mile too big and I’ve had to roll up the sleeves and the legs several times and they’re still too long. But at least I’m dry.”

“You look gorgeous. And naturally beautiful.” Suzie, baby, you’d look good in a sack, he thought, and found himself wondering what she’d look like in nothing at all. He quenched a sharp stab of desire and made an effort to steady his voice. “You’ll be much happier being yourself again, Suzie, not some untouchable ice maiden.”

Untouchable? Suzie’s heart jumped. What had made him say that? Did he know? She bowed her head over her hot coffee. Don’t be silly, how could he possibly know?

“I left my wedding dress on your bathroom floor,” she mumbled. Anything to switch the subject! “You might as well throw it out. It’s ruined now.”

“Well, it’s served its purpose. And knowing you fashion designers, you’ll want a new up-to-the-minute model if and when you ever decide to get married again…for keeps.” His dark eyes caught hers for a challenging second.

“At this precise moment, I can’t imagine wanting to be permanently married to anyone, ever,” she said fiercely, with a shudder.

Mack repressed a sigh. So, after all his efforts to save her from Tristan Guthrie and win her back, she still didn’t want to be married to him. At least not beyond tonight. But things could change. “Oh, you’ll want to be married one day, Suzie. You’re a woman who believes in marriage and happily-ever-afters. And children. And it will happen. When you find the right man.” When you realize you’ve already found him.

Suzie couldn’t look at him, afraid of what she might see in his eyes. Or afraid of what her own might reveal. “Please, Mack, I don’t want—” She stopped, taking a quick sharp breath. “What are you doing?”

“Just checking if your hair’s dry.” His hands were at her nape, his fingers threading through her curls. It was the lamest excuse she’d ever heard, but she didn’t immediately jerk away, a strange languor sweeping over her, her skin tingling under his touch. Tristan had never run his fingers through her hair.

“Don’t,” she whispered huskily, but she still couldn’t seem to move, or twist her head round to shake him off.

“He wasn’t the man for you, Suzie. Trust me.”

That made her jerk back away from him. “Trust you?” she breathed. “You’d be the last man I’d ever trust!”

She gulped in a rallying breath. He was waiting for her to crack, to admit that his presence disturbed her. Waiting for her to throw herself back into his arms and confess how she’d missed him and how badly she wanted him back in her life, regardless of his faults and failings.

Well, you’ll be waiting, she vowed hotly. She’d had a lifetime of pain and disillusionment to harden her heart against irresponsible charmers like Mack Chaney and her father. She’d watched her mother being worn down, day after day, and had sworn she’d never end up like her.

Mack looked pained. “I saved you from marrying a potential bigamist, didn’t I?”

She scowled. “I suppose you expect me to be grateful to you.” Her voice trembled. “Well, all right, I’m glad you found out in time. B-but you had no right to interfere in my life. You should have asked someone else to check up on Tristan.” Anyone else!

“I thought I had the right as a friend, Suzie. Friends look out for each other.”

“A friend?” Her eyes seared his. “We haven’t been friends, or even spoken to each other, since—” She stopped, shaking her head. Since the night he’d come round to her place boasting of his big win at the casino, thinking she’d be happy about his stroke of good fortune and congratulate him.

“Since the day of your father’s funeral,” Mack finished for her, reminding her that he’d turned up unexpectedly on that somber occasion, a few months after their abrupt parting.

Suzie took a gulp of her coffee. Her mother had kept her closely under her wing from the moment Mack had shown up, so that he would have no chance to speak privately to her, except to offer his condolences to both of them. She’d turned sharply away from him afterward, making it plain that she wanted nothing more to do with him.

Any man so like her father! It would be disastrous to get involved with Mack again. He’ll end up the same way as your father, one of these days, her mother had warned her over and over again, and despite the feelings she still had for Mack, she’d known that Ruth was right.

Mack had taken the hint and kept out of her life after that, and a few weeks later she’d heard that he’d gone off to travel round Australia on his Harley-Davidson—a trip that could have lasted months or years. She wondered when he’d come back. Just as well he had! Nobody else had thought to check up on Tristan Guthrie’s past.

“It must have been tough, finding out that your bridegroom had a wife already,” Mack conceded, his voice a warm, deep rumble, “but you don’t seem too heartbroken, Suzie, I’m glad to see. You know in your heart, don’t you, that Tristan was wrong for you?”