In Separate Bedrooms

‘I’ve also been thinking about the conversation I overheard you having with your mother when I arrived at the boarding-kennels yesterday afternoon,’ he continued determinedly. ‘I believe you were discussing a womaniser and a greedy pig …? The greedy pig in question apparently having four girlfriends?’

Mattie’s heart sank even more. It must be in her shoes by now!

She moistened dry lips—surprisingly so, considering all the wine she had spluttered over herself seconds ago!

It didn’t help that the damned man looked so attractive. She had deliberately dressed casually herself, in faded denims and a white tee shirt with ‘Sexy’ printed on the front, in the hope of playing down the importance of this meeting. But Jack Beauchamp was dressed just as casually, also in faded denims, his own rugby-style top just making him look more athletic. In fact, he should be the one wearing a tee shirt that said ‘Sexy’—as a warning to women to beware!

And the last thing she should be thinking about right now was how attractive the man was. The problem was, she just didn’t know what to say in answer to this frontal attack!

‘Oh, come on, Mattie,’ he chided. ‘You didn’t seem to have too much trouble articulating your feelings yesterday.’

‘Or tonight, either!’ she snapped, stung into replying now. ‘Okay, so that was you I was discussing with my mother yesterday, but that doesn’t mean—doesn’t mean—’

‘Yes?’ he pushed.

She glared at him. ‘I made a mistake, okay?’ she bit out at him resentfully. ‘Everyone makes mistakes occasionally.’ Even you, her tone implied.

‘So they do,’ he acknowledged in that too-mild voice. ‘But which mistake of yours are we referring to?’

This was actually a really nice pub, out in the country, with an olde-worlde atmosphere that seemed natural rather than contrived. There was a very attractive man sitting at her side and in other circumstances Mattie would have enjoyed herself. In other circumstances …

‘Look, I was the one who came to see you this morning, with the intention of apologizing for my mistake, and—and—’

‘Yes?’ Jack prompted as she broke off to look at him quizzically.

‘What do you mean, which mistake of mine?’ Mattie frowned.

‘Ah.’ He gave a humourless smile. ‘So you’ve finally realized that you may have made more than one.’

The only one that she could see was in daring to challenge this man—which, she freely admitted, was definitely a mistake! But Jack seemed to be implying she had got something else wrong …?

‘You mentioned your family yesterday,’ she began again slowly. ‘I assumed you meant a wife and children …?’

‘No wife. No children,’ he told her evenly. ‘Parents. And several siblings. One of which you met earlier today.’

Mattie looked sceptical. ‘And they are the family you’re going away with to Paris this weekend?’ He couldn’t really expect her to believe that explanation! Paris was a place for lovers, not for a man in his early thirties to visit with his parents and siblings!

He nodded, totally unconcerned by her obvious scepticism. ‘My youngest sister—Alexandra; you met her earlier,’ he reminded her.

‘Yes …’ Mattie agreed, still not convinced about that particular relationship.

He shrugged. ‘She recently became engaged, and decided that she would like to have her celebration dinner at the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower.’

Mattie didn’t know whether to laugh at the absurdity of this explanation, or to feel envious that someone could actually decide such a thing—and then it happened! Whichever way, it sounded highly unlikely to her.

‘So you don’t have a wife,’ Mattie accepted; maybe she could concede she might have been wrong about that.

‘Or four girlfriends,’ Jack Beauchamp told her firmly.

‘Well … probably not any more!’ Mattie couldn’t hold back her grin.

He still wasn’t sporting any visible signs of having recently encountered a woman—or indeed four women!—scorned, but for a man with a number of girlfriends he didn’t seem to have had any problem finding himself free to see her this evening!

‘Do you know what I think, Mattie?’ he spoke consideringly. ‘I think your father should have smacked your bottom more when you were a little girl!’ he continued, before she had time to think of a wisecrack answer concerning her lack of interest in what he thought about anything.

Her smile faded. ‘That might have been a little difficult—you see, he died when I was three,’ she explained evenly.

She had only vague memories of her father, a tall man who had used to throw her over his shoulder and carry her up to bed, a man who had always been laughing. She remembered her mother had always seemed to be laughing in those days too …

‘I’m sorry.’ Jack Beauchamp’s quiet apology brought her back to an awareness of where she was—and exactly who she was with. ‘That must have been difficult for you.’

‘More so for my mother, I would think,’ Mattie replied, giving a dismissive shrug to hide the pain talk of her father’s premature death could still cause her.

‘Yes …’

Mattie waited for Jack to carry on with his earlier rebuke, and when he didn’t she turned to look at him. He was obviously deep in thought, although his enigmatic expression made it impossible to even guess what those thoughts were about. As long as he wasn’t feeling sorry for her because of her father—

‘You see, Mattie,’ he suddenly rasped, ‘your recent—behaviour, has put me in something of an awkward position.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she prompted warily—she didn’t need to ask which part of her behaviour he was talking about; Jack Beauchamp no more believed her story about it being a genuine mistake, that she had mixed up the cards that had accompanied his bouquets, than she did his claim about those four women not being his girlfriends!

‘Oh, yes,’ he confirmed dryly, turning to look at her once again. ‘Of course, there is a way round it …’

Why did Mattie suddenly have the feeling that she wasn’t going to like his way round his particular problem?

Although there was no way she could possibly have been prepared for his next question!

‘Do you have a valid passport?’

‘Do I have a what?’ she gasped incredulously.

‘A valid passport,’ Jack repeated calmly.

‘Well, yes, I— What do you want to know that for?’ she demanded suspiciously; she had acquired a passport for the first time the previous year, when she and her mother had managed to get away, for the first time in years, to Greece for a week’s holiday. But what business was it of Jack Beauchamp’s whether or not she had a valid passport?

‘I’ve explained to you that I’m going to Paris this weekend,’ he reminded her.

‘For your sister’s engagement dinner …’ she recalled slowly.

‘Well, I wasn’t going alone,’ he told her with an air of regret.

‘You mentioned your parents and siblings are all going to be there too—’

‘No, Mattie,’ Jack Beauchamp drawled mockingly. ‘I meant I wasn’t going alone. And if you have a valid passport, I’m still not.’

‘I don’t— Ah.’ She winced as his meaning suddenly became clear. Obviously one of those four women he had sent flowers to over the weekend had been going to Paris with him.

Had been … Because after what Mattie had done with the cards she doubted any of those women were still speaking to him, let alone going to Paris for any weekend with him! Which meant it had to have been the unmarried one. Now which one had she been, Sally or Sandy or—

Did it really matter? Mattie instantly chided herself; Jack Beauchamp seemed to be telling her, with his question concerning her own passport, that, now she had put paid to his original companion for his weekend, she would have to accompany him instead!

‘I don’t think so, Mr Beauchamp,’ she told him loftily. Exactly what did he think she was? She sold and delivered flowers; she did not hire herself out for weekends in Paris!

‘You don’t?’

‘No, I don’t!’ Her voice rose indignantly, eyes flashing deeply blue.

‘Paris in the spring,’ he teased. ‘What could be more romantic?’

Mattie frowned at him reprovingly for his levity. ‘Okay, so I accept I’ve rather messed things up for you this weekend, but I’m sure that with your looks and apparent charm—’ after all, he had to have something to have acquired four girlfriends in the first place! ‘—you can easily find another woman to take to Paris!’ Most women she knew would jump at the chance—and not just because there was a trip to the French capital on offer.

Much as she hated to admit it, Jack Beauchamp was extremely attractive to look at, and he did possess a lazy charm that made her feel totally feminine. Not that she was in the least charmed, she told herself firmly; the man was just an accomplished flirt.

‘A bit short notice, don’t you think?’ he parried.

Mattie shrugged. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage to think of something.’

‘So you think I have looks and charm?’ he enquired.

‘As far as some women are concerned!’ she retorted. Heaven forbid he should gain the impression she found him the least bit attractive.

Even if she did …

It would be very hard for any woman not to acknowledge that he was extremely good-looking. It was just his having four girlfriends at the same time that was so unattractive. Just! As far as Mattie was concerned, especially after the Richard incident, it was totally unacceptable.

‘But you’ve very effectively put an end to all that, Mattie,’ he reminded her.

So her plan had worked, after all!

She shook her head. ‘That doesn’t mean I have to take their place as an act of appeasement!’

He chuckled softly. ‘I wasn’t suggesting you should sleep with me while we’re in Paris, Mattie—’

‘I told you, I am not going to Paris with you!’ she told him with firm finality.

While, at the same time, her imagination ran amuck with visions of Jack Beauchamp and herself, locked languidly together, their naked bodies passionately entwined as they kissed and caressed each other …

‘I doubt we would do much sleeping if we were to share a bedroom anywhere, Mattie,’ Jack’s murmured comment interrupted her intimate imaginings.

Mattie looked at him sharply, her blush deepening to embarrassment as she wondered if some of her inner thoughts had been visible on her face. She sincerely hoped not!

She swallowed hard, avoiding that warm dark gaze now. ‘I don’t see what the problem is with your going to Paris on your own,’ she dismissed scathingly. ‘Surely you can do without some adoring female in tow for one weekend?’ she derided. ‘Besides, you said it’s all going to be your family there, anyway—’

‘And Thom’s. My sister’s fiancé,’ he explained at Mattie’s puzzled glance. ‘Thom’s parents will be there. Also his sister.’

Mattie hesitated. The way he made that last statement, the deliberateness of his tone, seemed to imply—

‘Not another one!’ she sighed disgustedly; really, did the man have no scruples whatsoever? On the evidence she had seen so far, obviously not!

‘Not as far as I’m concerned, no,’ he told her dryly.

Mattie’s gaze narrowed at his claim. ‘But Thom’s sister has other ideas …?’

Jack nodded. ‘It’s completely unreciprocated, Mattie, I can assure you,’ he told her wryly. ‘But as Sharon is Thom’s sister, it’s rather an awkward situation. Short of actually telling her I’m just not interested, which would make things very difficult for everyone—I thought that if I turned up in Paris with a female in tow—’

‘Thanks very much!’ Mattie protested.

‘You weren’t my original choice,’ he reminded her.

No, either Sally, Cally, Sandy, or Tina had been that. But as Mattie, with one of her impulsive actions, had put paid to any of them going to Paris with him—!

‘What’s wrong with this Sharon?’ she prompted interestedly.

‘I’m too much of a gentleman to say,’ Jack returned smoothly.

Just as well she wasn’t taking another sip of her wine when he said that! Gentleman, indeed!

Mattie shook her head. ‘I have a business to run, I can’t just disappear off to Paris for three days—’

‘Four,’ Jack corrected evenly. ‘And Friday and Monday are bank holidays,’ he reasoned. ‘So it will only be for the Saturday. I’m sure you must take time off; who looks after the shop then?’

She didn’t very often take holidays, but when she did she always called on her best friend Sam from their university days. Sam was married with a young baby now, but she loved to keep her hand in and work in the shop if she had the chance. Except Mattie really didn’t want to take this particular holiday!

‘It doesn’t matter how many days it is—I’m not going!’ Mattie repeated firmly.

‘No?’ He raised dark brows.

Mattie took a desperate swallow of her wine, managing to avoid choking herself this time, although the warmth of the alcohol did nothing to fill the cold hollow she could feel in the pit of her stomach.

Her deliberate act—an act Jack Beauchamp knew to be deliberate!—in changing those cards on the flowers he’d sent to the four women in his life had been a really stupid, unprofessional thing to do. Something else Jack Beauchamp was well aware of. As he was also aware he could make serious professional trouble for her if he chose to do so …

Blackmail. The man was using blackmail on her. A crime as serious—if not more so—than the one she had committed.

But that was the important thing here—the one she had committed …

Deliberately. Not cold-bloodedly. She had been too indignant, on behalf of those four unsuspecting women—as well as for herself, she admitted now—for it ever to be called that! But she had definitely acted with malice aforethought.

But that surely wasn’t punishable, courtesy of a weekend in Paris with this man—

What was she saying? A weekend in Paris with Jack Beauchamp wasn’t a punishment. At least, not one that any sane woman would see as punishment … The man was gorgeous, charming, so sexy he made her toes curl to look at him. Punishment! Most women would leap at the chance to go to Paris with him for the weekend.

Even her, if she were honest with herself …

She avoided his teasing gaze, moistening dry lips. ‘What would I tell my mother?’ Oh, Mattie, she inwardly chided; she knew she wasn’t in the least sophisticated, but she could at least try to act as if she were. What would her mother say, indeed!

Jack seemed to give the question serious thought, surprisingly no mockery in his expression as he did so. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that your mother doesn’t know I’m the greedy pig you were talking about yesterday?’ he finally responded.

Once again Mattie couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘Er—’

‘She knows,’ he accepted economically. ‘Well, how about telling her the truth about this trip to Paris, then?’

‘The truth?’ Mattie gasped unbelievingly. ‘You want me to tell my mother that you’re blackmailing me into accompanying you to Paris because I did a totally unprofessional thing and you could ruin me because of it?’

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