Bride for Hire

‘Seth Carrington?’ Ellen looked at her daughter with new foreboding. ‘Not the Seth Carrington?’

‘I’d hate to think that there were two of him,’ said Daisy wryly. ‘Why?’

‘I was just reading about him on my way to the hospital,’ said Ellen, getting up to look through the evening newspaper and fold back a page at last to show Daisy an article. ‘He doesn’t sound like the kind of man you want to get involved with.’

She handed the paper to Daisy, who glanced through the article. The first section reported Seth’s arrival in London, reviewing the ruthlessness of his reputation and the phenomenal success of his vast business empire. The second was headed ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELORS and made much of the way Seth managed to combine financial success with a jet-setting lifestyle. It contained a whole list of beautiful women who had tried and failed to secure a permanent place in his life. Daisy’s lips tightened as she read it.

Still determinedly unmarried at thirty-eight, Seth Carrington had obviously made a career of not committing himself. Right at the end there was some gossipy speculation about his relationship with Astra Bentingger (‘currently the fourth Mrs Klissalikos’); perhaps they hadn’t been as discreet as Seth had claimed.

Daisy lowered the paper with a sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach, but she refused to be intimidated. She wasn’t going to give up her plan at this stage. ‘I’m not going to get involved with him,’ she told her mother with a not entirely convincing air of confidence. ‘I’m going to look for Tom. Seth Carrington is merely incidental.’

In spite of her brave words, Daisy couldn’t help feeling more than a little nervous as she took the lift back up to the penthouse suite. Was it only that afternoon that she had stood right there and wondered what Seth Carrington would be like? In a few short minutes he had impressed himself on her consciousness so utterly that it was impossible now to remember a time when his forbidding features hadn’t dominated her thoughts.

Daisy tugged at the neckline of her dress and pulled a face at the mirror. She had done her best to look smart, but no amount of brushing could make her curls lie neatly and her make-up was limited to lipstick and an inexpert stroke of blusher. Somehow she didn’t think that Seth Carrington was going to be very impressed.

He wasn’t. ‘Is that the best you could do?’ he greeted her, opening the door of the suite himself. He was formally dressed in an immaculate dinner jacket and bow-tie, and looked so unnervingly, unfairly attractive that Daisy felt quite weak at the knees.

She quelled the feeling sternly. ‘Good evening,’ she said brightly. ‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you. Yes, I would like to come in.’

Seth scowled, but stood back to let her into the suite. Maria had gone—no doubt with relief, thought Daisy sourly. Spending a whole day putting up with Seth Carrington’s rudeness would be enough to try anybody. ‘I thought I told you to wear something smart?’ he accused her, shutting the door with a snap.

‘What’s wrong with my dress?’ said Daisy, a little offended. She had expected him to criticise her face, but she had blown her meagre savings on this dress in last summer’s end-of-season sales where it had been reduced from some exorbitant price. Everyone had said it had been worth it, though. The dusky blue colour with its pattern of tiny stars suited her dark hair and pale skin, and Daisy had always felt rather good in it... until now.

‘It looks as if you’ve picked it up off some bargain rail,’ said Seth dismissively, and her lips tightened.

‘Are you always this charming?’

‘I can’t afford to waste my time tiptoeing around your finer feelings,’ he said irritably.

‘I can’t imagine you tiptoeing around anyone’s feelings,’ grumbled Daisy, finding it easier to squabble than to notice how devastatingly attractive Seth looked in his dinner jacket. She avoided looking at the sofa where they had kissed, but it kept catching annoyingly at the corner of her eye. ‘I’ve never met anyone so inconsiderate.’

Seth looked nettled. ‘I’m perfectly considerate when I need to be but, as I keep having to remind you, you’re here to do a job.’

‘Yes, and I might find it easier if you weren’t quite so unpleasant!’

It was obvious that Seth Carrington wasn’t used to being answered back. He glowered at Daisy for a moment and then gave a short, exasperated sigh, not entirely unmixed with amusement. ‘Are you always this argumentative?’

‘Only when provoked,’ said Daisy, assuming a demure expression that didn’t fool Seth for a minute.

‘Look, I’m merely trying to point out that you don’t exactly fit my image.’ He eyed her moodily. ‘It’s not just that the dress looks cheap. It’s a good girl’s dress—makes you look too unsophisticated. It’s well known that my taste is for women with a little more glamour. We’ll just have to get you some decent clothes tomorrow.’

Daisy’s mind went back to the article her mother had shown her. Seth’s name had been linked with any number of famous women, and it had to be said that none of them would have been described as good girls. ‘Why can’t we convince them that you’ve changed your image and fallen for a nice girl for a change?’

‘That’s not very likely, is it?’ said Seth with one of his disparaging looks, and Daisy folded her arms huffily.

‘You could pretend.’

‘I’m paying you to do the pretending, not me,’ he pointed out brutally. ‘And if you’re going to do it effectively you’re going to have to dress the part.’ He turned away to pick up the phone. ‘I’d better cancel our reservation.’

‘My dress isn’t that bad, is it?’ asked Daisy in dismay.

‘It is for what I had in mind,’ said Seth as he punched out a number. ‘I had intended to take you somewhere where we’d be noticed, but I’m not being photographed with you looking like a schoolgirl.’ He waited while the phone rang at the other end. ‘We’ll go somewhere quiet instead tonight.’

Daisy was secretly relieved as the lift slid silently back down to the ground floor. She wasn’t sure that she was quite ready to start acting out her role in front of the paparazzi just yet. A sleek black car was waiting outside the hotel entrance and at Seth’s appearance a uniformed chauffeur sprang into action, holding open the door for Daisy who sank wide-eyed back into the luxurious seat.

‘I’ve never been in a car like this before,’ she confided to Seth after he had given the chauffeur his instructions.

The glance he gave was half puzzled, half amused. ‘Don’t tell me that air of innocence is real after all?’

Daisy regretted her impulsive remark. She could still remember the look on his face as he had released her. ‘Perhaps you can act after all,’ he had said. The last thing she wanted was for him to think that she wasn’t quite the actress she claimed to be! ‘I don’t usually travel in such style, that’s all,’ she said, trying to assume a world-weary air, but she wasn’t sure whether Seth was quite convinced. He continued to watch her with a speculative expression until they reached the restaurant.

Any hopes Daisy might have had about popping round the corner to a cheap and cheery Italian were dashed when the car drew up outside one of the most expensive restaurants in London, but at least they were shown to a secluded table and the atmosphere was dark and intimate and positively reeking with discretion. There would be no flashing cameras here.

She opened her menu with enthusiasm. ‘I’m starving,’ she said, momentarily forgetting her world-weary role. ‘I didn’t have time for lunch.’ Glancing across at Seth, she found him watching her with an oddly arrested look in his eyes and she lowered the menu guiltily. ‘Oh, dear, I suppose it’s not very sophisticated to be interested in food?’

Seth gave one of his sudden, heart-shaking smiles. ‘I won’t tell,’ he promised. ‘It’ll be a refreshing change to have a meal with a woman who doesn’t just push salad around her plate all evening.’

Trusting that to mean that she would be allowed a pudding as well, Daisy ordered the most substantial starter she could find and then dithered happily over a choice of main course until Seth grew impatient and ordered for her.

‘She’ll have the lamb,’ he said to the waiter, who had been standing there with his pencil patiently poised for some time.

‘I was just going to order the poussin,’ hissed Daisy indignantly as the waiter removed the menus with admirably concealed relief.

‘I thought you were hungry?’ he retorted. ‘If I hadn’t made the decision for you we’d have been here all night.’

Daisy contented herself with muttering under her breath and buttering her roll with a certain lavish defiance.

‘Talking of “all night”,’ Seth went on, leaning casually back in his chair, ‘you’d better move into my suite tomorrow.’

Daisy’s head jerked up, knife poised in mid-butter. ‘Move in?’ she echoed in dismay. ‘Why?’

‘It’s not for that rather nice body of yours which you keep so cleverly concealed beneath those shapeless clothes,’ he said with a dryness that sent the colour rushing to her cheeks.

Grateful for the dim light, Daisy reapplied herself to her roll and forced down the treacherous memory of his hands curving around her breasts and sliding down her spine, warm against her skin. ‘I don’t see why I have to move in with you.’

‘Because, Daisy, word will soon get around if I’m seen putting you chastely into a taxi every night and, while you and I may know that we’re not going to fall into bed as soon as we get in, we want everyone else to think that we can’t keep our hands off each other, don’t we?’

‘I don’t see how anyone’s going to know whether we sleep together or not,’ grumbled Daisy, who wished that she couldn’t imagine the prospect in quite such unnerving detail and was desperately trying to disguise her perturbation with bolshiness. ‘Why can’t I just sneak out the back way?’

‘Someone would be bound to see you and the next thing we’d know there’d be a snippet in the gossip columns, speculating about just how close our relationship was.’

‘But who cares what we do?’ cried Daisy. ‘Who on earth is going to be interested in what time I go home?’

Seth shrugged. ‘You’d be surprised. I’m afraid it’s one of the drawbacks of fame. People seem to think that as soon as you acquire money or influence you forfeit your right to privacy. It’s something you’re just going to have to get used to over the next few weeks. If no one was interested in me or Astra there wouldn’t be any need for you to be here at all, so you can thank the gossip columns for your job...and your job is living with me for the moment.’

‘Will...?’ She hesitated, cleared her throat and tried to sound unconcerned. ‘We won’t have to share a bed as well, will we?’

‘No.’ Seth’s eyes gleamed with ironic understanding. ‘There’s another room in the suite. Maria’s been using it, but she’s going to stay with friends so she won’t need it. She’ll come in during the day, but I’ll need you to be there, too, so you might as well stay.’

‘What do you need me for?’ Marginally reassured by the promise of a room to herself, Daisy had just taken a bite of her roll and her voice was rather indistinct.

‘In case people turn up.’ The wine waiter was presenting the bottle for Seth’s inspection, and he tasted the wine before giving a cursory nod and turning back to Daisy. ‘I’ve got a number of business meetings scheduled, but other people tend to drop by for one reason or another and that means you being there to prove that I can’t bear not to have you at my side.’

‘I can’t sit around all day just on the off chance that someone’s going to drop by,’ she protested. ‘I’ll go potty without anything to do.’

Seth watched the waiter pour the wine into her glass. ‘I’d have thought you’d be used to that.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Daisy indignantly. Most days she hardly got a chance to sit down at all!

‘Being an out-of-work actress,’ he explained, raising an eyebrow at her expression. ‘I’ve always imagined that meant sitting by the phone, waiting for the call to stardom.’

She had forgotten that she was meant to be an actress. ‘That’s the advantage of an answering machine,’ she said. Really, she was getting quite good at lying! ‘It means I can keep busy.’

‘Doing what?’ Or can I guess from that very talented performance you gave this afternoon?’

Daisy shot him a hostile look. She didn’t want to be reminded about that particular performance. ‘Actually, I work in a flower shop,’ she said coldly, deciding that it was best to keep as close to the truth as possible. ‘When I haven’t got a part, that is,’ she added, just to remind him of her acting credentials.

‘I don’t suppose you earn much in a flower shop?’ said Seth, who could have bought a whole chain of flower shops without even noticing a blip in his bank balance.

She sighed, thinking of the last difficult year when business had fallen off and the bills had mounted. ‘No.’

‘I’d have thought a girl with your interest in money would have jumped at the chance of being paid to sit around,’ he said in his caustic voice. ‘It’s not as if it’s going to be hard work. There’s a television and a health club and, if the worst comes to the worst, you can always read a book.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Daisy without enthusiasm.

A silence fell. Running her finger around the rim of her glass, Daisy studied the deep golden colour of the wine. She wished that she could stop noticing Seth’s hands; wished her eyes would stop following the line of his jaw back to the place below his ear where she had first kissed him. He was drinking his wine, but she could feel his uncomfortably acute gaze on her face and had the sudden, horrible certainty that he knew exactly what she was thinking.

‘Have you told Astra about us?’ she asked awkwardly. It was the first thing that came into her head as she searched desperately for something to say, but as soon as the words came out she could hear the implied intimacy in that ‘us’. ‘I mean, have you told her about me?’

Seth’s expression was curiously shuttered. ‘Yes.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She was pleased, of course.’

‘Oh.’ Daisy felt unaccountably put out. ‘Did you tell her that I wasn’t Dee Pearce?’

‘I said that I’d come to an agreement with you instead of Dee,’ said Seth. ‘I didn’t go into details.’

‘Didn’t she want to know what I was like?’ If she had been in love with Seth Carrington she would want to know exactly who he was going to be spending so much time with, Daisy reflected. Perhaps Astra Bentingger knew that she didn’t have to worry.

‘I told her that you didn’t really look right for the part,’ said Seth, sounding so bored that Daisy was nettled.

‘Did you tell her how I convinced you to give me the part anyway?’ she asked sourly, hoping to embarrass him, but she might have known that it was impossible to do that.

Seth merely looked across the table at her, his grey eyes inscrutable. ‘I told her that you were a better actress than you looked,’ he said. ‘I also said that I thought it extremely likely that you’d drive me round the bend but that, having got so far, I’d just have to put up with you.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE disgruntled silence—at least on Daisy’s side of the table—was broken by the waiter, arriving with exquisitely presented plates.

Daisy was glad of the excuse to concentrate on her food. She found that she didn’t like the idea of Seth coolly discussing her with Astra. Have to put up with her, indeed! No wonder Astra was pleased if he had talked about her like that! Even a superwoman might have a few qualms at the idea of her man pretending to be in love with another girl, but it must have been pretty obvious that Daisy could not even be considered a rival.

Her lobster salad with asparagus was delicious but it might as well have been ashes in Daisy’s mouth until she pulled herself together. She didn’t care what Seth and Astra thought about her. She only wanted to find Tom, and it would be a lot easier if she remembered more often that she was simply here as part of the job.

She glanced across at Seth, who was quite unbothered by her sulky silence. It was easier to look at him when his eyes were on his plate and, as if for the first time, she noted the lines starring the corners of his eyes and the dark hair which was already beginning to show a few strands of grey at the temples. Her gaze was just following the flat, angular planes of his cheeks and the arrogant line of his nose down to his mouth when he looked up unexpectedly and caught her watching him. Daisy’s heart gave an odd little somersault as she met that steely, skewering gaze, bumping back into place so abruptly that it left her slightly breathless.

‘I...I suppose I should know something about you,’ she stammered, not quite sure why she felt the need to explain herself. ‘A real girlfriend would know more about you than the fact that you’re American and stinking rich.’

‘What more do you need to know?’ asked Seth sardonically.

‘Well...about your family?’ Daisy suggested. ‘Where you live, what you do...that kind of thing.’

‘I never talk about my family,’ he said flatly. ‘No one will expect you to know anything about them.’

Daisy was longing to ask whether Astra knew, but there was a grim finality in Seth’s tone that warned her to steer well clear of the subject. ‘What about where you live, then?’ she asked instead. ‘Or is that a state secret too?’

‘I’ve got several places,’ he said indifferently. ‘Manhattan, Malibu, Cape Cod, a skiing lodge in Utah...and Cutlass Cay in the Caribbean.’

‘But which one’s home?’

She could have sworn that Seth had never even considered the question before. He looked momentarily taken aback, then shrugged. ‘Wherever I am, I guess.’

‘How sad,’ she said without thinking, and Seth’s brows rose arrogantly.

‘Most people wouldn’t describe having four luxurious houses to choose from as being a particularly sad situation,’ he said stiffly, looking down his nose.

Daisy thought of the unpretentious house in Battersea where she had grown up. Its wallpaper was faded now, its rooms a little shabby and a little cluttered, but it was warm and comfortable and familiar. ‘I just think it’s sad not to have a place to call home,’ she said, her dark blue eyes serious. ‘Somewhere you know you belong—with people you love and who love you.’

‘I don’t believe in love.’ said Seth with something of a sneer, and Daisy looked at him curiously.

‘If you think that why are you getting married?’

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he frowned down into his glass, swirling the wine around as he thought. ‘Astra and I will make a good team,’ he said at last. ‘She’s a beautiful woman with a first-class business brain; we’ll be partners as much as anything else. And we understand each other. Astra isn’t sentimental; any more than I am. Neither of us can afford to be.’

‘It’s an odd thing not to be able to afford when you can afford absolutely everything else,’ said Daisy. Seth glanced at her sharply, but she didn’t notice. She was crumbling her roll absently with her knife and wondering how someone whose kiss was so warm could be content with such a joyless life. There was something chilling about his rejection of family, and even marriage with Astra seemed to be approached from a businesslike point of view. Daisy had always scoffed at people who claimed that they wouldn’t like to be rich, but she was beginning to change her mind.

‘What about you?’ Seth interrupted her thoughts abruptly. His voice was harsh, almost as if the question were forced out of him.

Daisy looked up from her roll, surprised. ‘Me?’

‘I might need to show some awareness of your life before I met you,’ he said, but it sounded oddly like an excuse.

‘But no one’s going to be interested in me!’ she protested. She couldn’t imagine anyone even noticing her next to Seth.

‘You never know,’ he said slowly. ‘If you were dressed properly you could be quite taking.’

The possibility of being ‘quite taking’ didn’t compare well with being described as beautiful with a first-class business brain, Daisy reflected, piqued. ‘I’d have thought that, as far as most people were concerned, the only interesting thing about me is that I’m going to be with you,’ she said rather grumpily.

‘Perhaps,’ Seth agreed, ‘but it’s always best to be prepared. So, go on. Tell me about yourself.’

‘Well...’ Daisy hesitated, knowing that her life would seem irredeemably dull to Seth but determined not to make any apologies for it. She wasn’t the one who looked bleak whenever families were mentioned, after all. ‘My father died when I was small, but my mother married again a few years ago and my stepfather’s wonderful.’ Her voice wobbled a bit when she thought about Jim, who had been so kind to her and brought her mother so much happiness. She had to find Tom for him. ‘We’re a very close family,’ she went on more steadily, ‘but I can’t exactly say that my life has been packed with excitement.’

‘Is that why you became an actress?’

‘What?’ Daisy’s eyes slid away as she remembered. ‘Oh...yes,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Yes, I think I hoped I’d find...oh, I don’t know...something different. I love my home and my family but sometimes it’s all a bit too safe.’ She stopped, aware that she was giving too much away. It was true, though. She loved creating beautiful displays of flowers but there were times when she longed to escape from the humdrum problems of the shop in Battersea. That was why she had broken with Robert, who was so meticulous and kind but who couldn’t understand that she wanted more out of life before she settled down to marriage. Then Jim had fallen ill, and she hadn’t thought about excitement for a while.

And now here she was, having dinner with one of the most eligible men in the world who was going to take her off to his own Caribbean island.

Seth had been watching her face. ‘So now you’re just waiting for a starring role?’

Daisy thought of beautiful, businesslike Astra who was the star of this particular play. She was only the understudy.

‘Sort of,’ she said with an unconsciously wistful sigh, and there was a tiny moment of silence as they looked at each other.

‘Daisy,’ Seth began suddenly, but he never finished what he was about to say. A couple had crossed the room towards them, and the man was clapping Seth on the shoulder.

‘Seth Carrington! What are you doing here?’

Hardly knowing whether to be relieved or peculiarly disappointed at the interruption, Daisy looked up as well and her eyes widened as she recognised James Gifford-Gould. With his vast inherited fortune and playboy lifestyle, James was so rarely out of the gossip columns that he was almost familiar. A languid blonde with a cat-like smile hung on his arm and offered her cheek for Seth to kiss as he got to his feet and returned their greetings.

‘This is Daisy,’ he said, and coolly introduced James and the blonde whose name was Eva.

‘Hello,’ said Daisy, hoping that she sounded equally composed.

Eva barely nodded. Her eyes had already flickered over Daisy and rested for one disintegrating moment on her dress before quite obviously dismissing her as without interest. James was the sort of man who mentally undressed every female he met, and his eyes lingered rather longer.

‘Hel-lo,’ he said, his gaze continuing to rove over her. ‘You look much too sweet to be with a ruthless type like Seth. ‘I didn’t think they still made girls like you.’ He glanced knowingly at Seth. ‘Not your usual style, Seth! Where did you find her?’ he joked. ‘I’d like one too!’

To Daisy’s surprise, Seth was looking boot-faced. ‘I’m afraid I got the only one,’ he said curtly, ‘and I’m keeping her.’

‘I quite understand, dear fellow,’ said James with a wink. ‘I’d feel exactly the same.’

Eva was beginning to look petulant. ‘Come on, James,’ she said, tugging at him, and after a last practised smile at Daisy he allowed himself to be dragged off.

Seth sat down again, scowling. ‘That man’s the worst gossip in London!’