Bride for Hire

CHAPTER TWO

DAISY’S lips were soft against the firmness of Seth’s jaw and she could smell the clean, masculine scent of his skin with its faintly expensive tang of aftershave. Without intending to, Daisy found her mouth lingering against him. There was something irresistibly solid about him—something magnetising, something tantalising—something that made her drift her lips in feather-light kisses below his ear.

Seth’s arms were still folded in front of him and he stayed utterly still beneath her touch, his very lack of response a provocation. Piqued, Daisy began to press slow, enticing kisses along his jaw instead. She had forgotten her intention to withdraw after that first token touch to his throat. She had forgotten that she hardly knew this man; forgotten that what she did know she didn’t like; forgotten everything but the feel of his skin like tempered steel beneath her lips and her determination to make him acknowledge the simmering awareness in her kisses.

Slowly, slowly, she worked her way along his jaw, but it wasn’t until she reached the tantalising corner of his mouth that she felt his lips begin to curl upwards in an equally slow smile. ‘Go on,’ he said, but the steadiness in his voice made Daisy pause. She made as if to withdraw but he had unfolded his arms at last and his hands were at her waist, drawing her back against him, and suddenly it seemed the most natural thing in the world to melt into him and feel his lips part beneath hers.

They fitted against each other perfectly. Somehow she had expected Seth’s mouth to feel as cold and calculating as it looked, but it wasn’t. It was warm, warmer than Daisy would have believed possible as they kissed and then kissed again. A gathering excitement looped around them, tightening its coils around them until the only thing to do was to relax into it and slide her arms from his shoulders around his neck to stop herself being swept away altogether.

She was bewitched, intoxicated by the sweet persuasion of his lips and the unyielding hardness of his body as he held her against him, and when his hands slid beneath her T-shirt to spread possessively over her skin Daisy’s only response was to murmur low in her throat and arch her back into his touch. His fingers were searing, making her gasp as they explored her slenderness and drifted insistently upwards to curve around her breast.

It was that sharp intake of breath at the jolt of electric excitement that broke the kiss. Daisy found herself staring down into unreadable grey eyes, her own dazed and very blue, and then Seth slid his hands back to her waist to put her from him with something which might have been reluctance.

‘That was very good, Daisy Deare,’ he said, his breathing still slightly ragged. ‘That was really very good indeed. It seems that you can act, after all.’

Daisy was so shaken that she could hardly stand. Her legs felt insubstantial, as if she were held up by no more than the frantic flutter of a thousand butterfly wings. She couldn’t believe what she had done. Had that really been she, arching beneath the touch of a perfect stranger; sinking into his kiss; abandoning herself to the shivery thrill of his lips and his hands? Appalled at herself, she swallowed hard and fought to steady her own voice.

‘It’s amazing what you have to do to get a job now, isn’t it?’ It was barely more than a croak but at least she managed to get a whole sentence out, which was a miracle under the circumstances.

Seth’s cool gaze rested for a moment on the huge blue eyes before dropping to her mouth which was still burning from his touch. ‘I think I can say that you’ve passed your audition with flying colours—if you still want the job, that is?’

She wasn’t going to go through that to give up the job now! Daisy’s chin lifted a fraction. ‘Yes.’ Her voice wasn’t quite steady yet, but with every moment she was getting a better grip on herself. ‘Why else would I have kissed you?’

‘Why, indeed?’ Seth got up from the sofa, his grey eyes sardonic. ‘I just hope poor old Robert is as understanding as you say he is. Does he know just how well you “act”, Daisy?’

‘Does Astra Bentingger know how thoroughly you audition?’

Seth’s expression was flinty as he took Daisy’s chin in one strong brown hand. ‘I’ve warned you before about that tongue of yours, Daisy,’ he said and, although she met his eyes bravely, inwardly Daisy quailed at his tone. ‘Do you want to learn what I’m like when I’m pushed too far?’

One look into his eyes was enough to give her the answer to that. Daisy moistened her lips. ‘No.’

‘In that case. I suggest that you learn to keep your tongue firmly between your teeth.’ He released her face and Daisy stepped back, resisting the urge to rub her chin where he had held her. It was impossible to imagine that only minutes ago she had twined her arms around this formidable man’s neck and quivered with excitement at his kisses. ‘Astra is none of your business,’ Seth went on coldly. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re going to be working for me just like any other employee. That means you get paid to do as you’re told, not to be smart. Is that understood?’

‘Perfectly.’

He gave her a hard look then moved away, suddenly brisk. ‘All right, let’s get down to business. The deal is that you agree to act as my girlfriend until Astra’s divorce comes through or until such time as I decide that there’s no need to keep up the pretence any longer. It means you’ll have to spend at least the next few weeks with me, but in return I’m prepared to pay you a considerable sum of money—in cash—to ensure your discretion.’

Daisy’s jaw dropped when Seth told her just how much he would pay her. ‘Is that acceptable?’ he asked, turning to frown at her gaping expression.

Acceptable? Daisy had never even contemplated having such a large sum of money before! It would at least take the immediate burden of financial worries off her mother’s shoulders, she calculated quickly. ‘I think so,’ she said, pursing up her lips and trying to look as if she discussed sums like that every day of the week. ‘That sounds fine.’

‘You’ll get paid at the end,’ Seth warned her, ‘when you’ve shown me that you can behave.’

Daisy was still trembling inside from the effect of his kiss, but she managed to move away quite coolly. ‘We will go to the Caribbean?’

‘Yes, I’ve invited a number of guests to my island as a cover for meeting Astra there.’

‘Your island?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘I thought you might have a house there,’ said Daisy. ‘I didn’t think you’d have a whole island!’

One of those unsettling gleams of amusement sprang to the grey eyes. ‘It’s only a small island, if that makes you feel any better.’

‘Does that mean we’ll be stuck out on our own, or will we be able to get to the other islands?’ Daisy asked anxiously, and his brows lifted.

‘Being “stuck out on our own” is generally the idea behind having your own island,’ he pointed out with some acidity. ‘But if you’re desperate for crowds we can take the seaplane or one of the boats. Where did you want to go?’

Mike had recommended that Daisy started looking in the Windward Islands, but it had only been one of the places Tom had mentioned. ‘I was just wondering,’ she said vaguely. She had no idea how she was going to start looking for Tom, but there was no point in worrying about it until she got there. Anyway, with the kind of money Seth was offering, she would be able to afford to travel around if necessary, Daisy reminded herself buoyantly. ‘When are we going?’ she asked Seth, who glanced at her suspiciously.

‘You seem very keen to get to the Caribbean, Daisy.’

‘I’ve always wanted to go there, that’s all.’ For some reason, Daisy was reluctant to tell Seth about Tom and her stepfather’s illness. He was too ruthless, too calculating—the kind of man who would be impatient of sentiment and messy emotions—and if he thought that Daisy’s mind wasn’t going to be entirely on the job she knew that he would have no compunction in calling off the whole deal. There would be no point in appealing to Seth’s better nature. Daisy doubted very much that he even had one.

Look at the chilly way he was approaching his marriage with Astra Bentingger, and any man who could kiss like that and remain totally unmoved had to be utterly heartless. No, better by far to let him think that she was an impoverished actress, desperate for a palm-fringed beach.

‘Well, if you’re planning on island-hopping you’re going to have to wait until I’ve finished with you,’ said Seth, unwittingly demonstrating his overbearing image. ‘I’m not having you jaunting off when I need you on hand to look suitably adoring.’

‘How long do you think that’ll be?’

‘A month? Six weeks? Maybe longer.’ He quirked a sardonic eyebrow at her. ‘Think Robert will be able to manage without you that long?’

‘I expect so,’ said Daisy with a frosty look. She didn’t like the sneer in Seth’s voice whenever he mentioned Robert. Robert might not be very exciting, but at least he had a kind heart.

‘He’d better start getting used to it right away,’ said Seth callously. ‘I’ve got a number of social engagements over the next couple of weeks and, if we’re going to establish you as my girlfriend, we may as well start tonight. I’ll take you out to dinner.’

He walked over to the door, as if to indicate that the interview was now over, while Daisy eyed him resentfully. She had been planning to visit Jim in hospital that evening. The brusque way Seth gave orders and arrogantly assumed that everyone else would fall in with them without question riled her. She stayed stubbornly where she was.

‘What if I’ve got other plans for this evening?’

‘Cancel them,’ said Seth with insulting indifference and opened the door. ‘If you give Maria your address I’ll come and pick you up at eight o’clock.’

Daisy tried to imagine Seth turning up at her front door. He would look completely alien in their quiet south London street and, quite apart from anything else, it wouldn’t take him long to work out that her address was too close to Dee Pearce’s for coincidence. “There’s no need for you to collect me,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ll come here.’

‘What’s the matter, Daisy?’ mocked Seth. ‘Don’t you want Robert to meet your new boss?’

‘I’d rather keep my private life entirely separate,’ said Daisy, trying—and failing—to sound quelling. Seth certainly didn’t appear noticeably quelled.

‘Just make sure you’re looking a bit smarter than you do now,’ was all he said, and nodded unmistakably at the door. ‘Now beat it,’ he said. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

Daisy bridled at his dismissal all the way home. He was insufferably rude, infuriatingly overbearing, unbelievably arrogant! There she was—prepared to humiliate herself by pretending to actually like the man and he carried on as if he was doing her a favour! Simmering, Daisy glowered out of the window of the bus. She wished she could have told Seth what he could do with his pretence but the thought of Jim, lying in hospital longing for a reconciliation with his son, had held her tongue at the crucial moment and she had had to content herself with stalking past him without a word of farewell.

The next few weeks were not going to be easy, Daisy acknowledged gloomily to herself. There was nothing easy about Seth Carrington. She could picture him with unnerving clarity, as if his image were scorched into her brain—the dark, forbidding lines of his face, the hardness of his eyes, the disturbing set of his mouth.

Daisy shifted uneasily in her seat and the colour. surged into her cheeks at the memory of how that mouth had felt against hers. What had possessed her to kiss him like that—to let herself be kissed like that? Why couldn’t she have stepped coolly away from him after a token peck on the cheek? That’s all it would have taken. Instead, she had taken him at his word and kissed him like a lover, and now she couldn’t forget the touch and the taste and the feel of him. It was as if she could still breathe in his scent; still feel the tantalising roughness of his skin beneath her lips.

Somehow, when she had been with Seth, the fact that she had been able to argue with and kiss a perfect stranger within a few minutes of meeting him had seemed perfectly natural, but now that she was away from the overwhelming magnetism of his presence the memory of her odd behaviour struck Daisy with the force of a blow and she sat, appalled, as she realised what she had done. She must have been mad!

Her mother seemed to agree when Daisy gave her a very edited version of her afternoon’s activities. ‘You went under completely false pretences to see a man you’ve never met before in your life and agreed to spend the next few weeks posing as his girlfriend?’ she summarised incredulously. ‘Daisy, what were you thinking of?’

‘I was thinking of Jim,’ said Daisy, crouching down beside her mother’s chair. ‘I know it sounds unusual, Mum, but it’s just a job. He’s not interested in me at all.’

‘So he says!’

‘He wants to marry someone else—that’s the whole point,’ said Daisy patiently. ‘Really, he couldn’t have made it clearer that I’m not his type and he’s definitely not mine!’ Treacherously her mind veered to that terrible kiss before she managed to wrench it firmly away. ‘It’s a business arrangement, that’s all, and it’s the only chance I’ve got to get to the Caribbean and look for Tom. Think what it would mean to Jim if I could persuade him to come home?’

Ellen Johnson twisted her hands together in her lap. ‘If only you could! But Tom never accepted me. I’m sure that’s why he left. He wouldn’t want to come back, knowing that I was here.’

‘He might have resented you at first, but you weren’t the reason he and Jim argued,’ said Daisy stoutly, as she had said so many times before. ‘They were both too stubborn to give in and admit that they needed each other. I’m sure Tom would come back at once if he knew how ill Jim was. That’s why I’ve got to track him down somehow. I know things are busy in the flower shop at the moment, but Lisa can cope if you just keep an eye on things.’

‘But what if this girl Dee Pearce turns up?’ worried Ellen, still unconvinced by Daisy’s breezy assurance that she had found herself a job that would take her to the Caribbean. ‘She might tell this man that you’re not friends at all, and then what will he think?’

‘She won’t turn up,’ Daisy assured her confidently. ‘I told you, Mum. As soon as I realised that the letter wasn’t addressed to me at all I took it round to her house to explain why I’d opened it. I rang the bell, but a neighbour told me that Dee had gone away. That’s why the whole thing just seemed like fate.’

‘You took a terrible risk,’ her mother reproached her.

‘If it had been some sort of shady deal I’d have just walked out,’ she pointed out, more confident now than she had been when the idea had first occurred to her. ‘As it is, it’s a perfectly straightforward job. It shouldn’t be too hard to hang around and look dumb at a few parties, and in return Seth Carrington will take me out to the Caribbean and give me enough money to find Tom. Easy.’ Daisy had forgotten her doubts on the bus and was bent on convincing her mother that she had found the perfect solution.