The Marriage Merger

He signed the chit and thanked the young man, who continued to hover a little anxiously. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘Sir—madam is sleeping.’

She’d finally wound down and gone for a nap, had she? He was relieved to hear it. She must have been running on empty. He’d done that in the past, just kept going, his body clock all over the place, his brain running on pure adrenalin. There was always a payback.

‘Don’t worry. She’ll have tea later.’

‘No, sir. Madam sleeps in her chair.’ He crossed his arms and lowered his head on them in a mime to show exactly how she’d gone to sleep, with her head on her arms at the desk.

‘Oh, I see.’ Not so good. He’d done that too, and he knew from experience that when she woke it would be with muscles screaming and her neck in urgent need of an osteopath. ‘I’ll take care of it.’

He walked along the veranda to the living room and paused in the doorway, grinning despite himself. She must have crashed out over the keyboard not long after he’d left her. The laptop was switched on. It was still connected to the Internet: her head was pressed against the keyboard and the screen was going crazy.

He touched her shoulder lightly. She didn’t stir. He gave it a little shake. She grumbled and turned her head away from him so that he could see the imprint of the keys at her temple. And carried on sleeping.

Her mind, after running almost continually for twenty-four hours, had finally shut down on her.

He didn’t blame it.

He closed the Internet connection, switched off the laptop and then addressed the problem of getting her to bed. She was tall, and far from stick-thin. Beneath the shapeless suit she had an old-fashioned quantity of figure which was made for body-hugging dresses and high-cut one-piece bathing suits.

The downside of that was the risk of putting his own back in traction if he wasn’t very careful how he lifted her.

But he couldn’t leave her slumped in the chair. She’d wake with every muscle screaming in protest.

Or course if she woke up in his arms it wouldn’t be just the muscles that screamed.

He shifted his attention to her ear, stroking the tips of his fingers over the warm outer edge in a manner guaranteed to wake all but the soundest of sleepers. No earrings, just tiny gold studs, he noticed. She wore no jewellery of any kind. Wasn’t that odd in a woman whose life apparently revolved around the stuff?

All that stirred was a comb, which slipped from its tenuous mooring.

He caught it and stuffed it in his pocket. Then, telling himself he’d undoubtedly be sorry for this later, he bent down and, with one arm beneath her knees and the other round her waist, picked her up.

Her head rolled against his shoulder, combs and pins falling in a noisy shower so that her hair began to fall in loose skeins around her shoulders, catching the light. It was a lot longer than he’d realised.

Why?

Hair was sensuous, almost erotic stuff. Man-bait.

Why would a woman who cared so little about her appearance cling to something that she didn’t use to enhance her appearance? Hair that appeared to cause her endless bother?

Why, when on the surface she appeared such a straightforward, uncomplicated woman, were there so many curious contradictions?

Shifting her dead weight so that he took some of the strain against his chest, he took a cautious step, biting back a harsh expletive as one of his bare feet found the upturned teeth of a comb.

Flora didn’t stir. She was dead to the world. Out of it.

As he carried her into her bedroom he began to wish he’d succumbed to temptation and hit the sack himself.

But it didn’t last for ever and he finally put her down on the bed as gently as he could. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering. She probably wouldn’t have woken up if he’d just dropped her on it. And she wouldn’t thank him for his trouble anyway.

She’d just look at him with those wary eyes that gave away nothing, absolutely nothing, and tell him he shouldn’t have bothered.

What was it with her anyway? He wasn’t a monster. Women usually liked him. He had a lot of friends who were women. And a lot of ex-girlfriends who would be happy to see him in hell, he acknowledged. The ones who’d banked on something more permanent.

Maybe Flora was saving time by cutting out the fun bit in between and going straight for the second option.

He’d already decided that she was clever.

He took off her shoes. She had long, narrow feet. Elegant, he thought, although the blue nail polish came as something of a surprise. What kind of woman painted her toenails when no one was going to see them? And didn’t paint her fingernails, which they would?

What kind of woman kept long, difficult hair, and then stuffed it up in an untidy bird’s nest on top of her head?

One with pretty feet. And a pair of very classy ankles.

He put her shoes beside the bed and set about removing her jacket. It was already creased beyond any remedy other than a very hot iron, which proved the linen was the genuine article. No surprise there. But she’d sleep more comfortably without it, in the jersey silk tank she was wearing beneath it.

He sat on the bed and pulled her up into a sitting position. She slumped against him like an exhausted child, her face squashed against his neck. She’d probably kill him if she woke up now, he thought. But he eased off the jacket and dropped it on the floor and didn’t rush to let her go.

If he was going to die, he might as well do something worth dying for. And, with her head still resting against his shoulder, he carefully removed all the pins and combs from her hair.

It descended, heavy and dark, the colour of bittersweet chocolate, over his hands and down her back. He shook it loose, spreading its astonishing silky length through his fingers before he laid her gently back against the pillow and stood back.

Not exactly Sleeping Beauty, but a lot closer than he would ever have imagined when he’d joined her in the back seat of that limousine in the grey chill of a London morning.

It seemed pointless, after such intimacy, to be coy about taking off her trousers. He accomplished that final kindness without difficulty, scarcely pausing to notice that her knickers were not of the plain, functional kind, but were expensive, French, black. And fitted like a second skin.

Or that her legs matched her ankles very nicely.

That would be taking unfair advantage.

He drew the drapes to keep off any curious insects that might fly in, then, closing the louvre doors to the veranda behind him and leaving her to sleep, returned to his delayed breakfast.

To consider the conundrum that was Flora Claibourne. The woman hiding behind the disguise of a plain, spinsterish academic. All she’d left out was a pair of spectacles, he thought.

Ones with heavy tortoiseshell frames—to match the combs.

CHAPTER THREE

FLORA woke feeling muzzy-headed, dry and aching in all her joints. She also felt slightly hungover, as if she’d been sitting in one position for too long. Then she remembered. She had.

Not been drinking too much, just sitting in one position for hours and hours and hours. In a plane. With Bram Gifford.

Working to avoid talking. Working in an effort to stave off the tension caused by his presence.

She’d thought she’d got over her problem with men like him, with their good looks, easy smile, natural charm. Had it under control.

Apparently not. The moment he’d stepped into the car it had all come flooding back. The shame. The painful humiliation.

The hot, sweet rush of desire.

It wasn’t fair to blame Bram Gifford, take it out on him. He was a man who worked hard and played hard. And made no pretence of being interested in her. She’d try and be nicer to him. She owed it to India.

She sat up, easing her limbs, then blinked, thinking there was something wrong with her eyes. But it wasn’t her eyes that were misted, just the sheer drapes pulled around the bed.

She pushed them aside, swung her feet to the floor and, finding a bottle of mineral water on the night table, opened it and took a long drink as she looked about her. She must have crashed fairly spectacularly since she hadn’t even noticed the bedroom. It wasn’t surprising. She’d been on the go non-stop for the best part of two days.

The only surprise was that she’d managed to get to bed at all. Divested of most of her clothes and with her hair loose, her hairpins and precious antique combs neatly laid out in a row by the bed—all but one of them, anyway—was quite an achievement. She checked her hair for the missing comb, but it must have slipped out somewhere.

The last time she’d flown long-haul she’d woken up with her head on her desk, a crick in her neck that it had taken a week to straighten out and a hairpin jammed in the keyboard of her laptop.

If Bram Gifford had found her like that… Well, she preferred not to think about the kind of impression that would have made. India, quite rightly, would have thrown a hissy fit.

She stood up, did a few stretches. What did the man want, for heaven’s sake? He made her so nervous with all that quiet consideration. He was too serious. She didn’t believe it. It had to be an act. She just knew he was laughing at her… She stopped herself.

Why would he be laughing? He didn’t even want to be here. She had nothing that he wanted.

Except control of Claibourne & Farraday.

As for being serious, wasn’t it more likely that he was thoroughly bored? Fed-up with having to trail around after her when he could be hitting the high-life at some fashionable resort packed with pretty girls eager for a holiday flirtation.

At least he hadn’t flirted with her.

Despite the lack of encouragement, in her experience men like him could rarely resist any opportunity to set female hearts fluttering.

If her mother was busy, they’d practise on her.

Just to keep their hand in.

Most of them had meant no harm. They might even have thought they were being kind. Clearly she’d been desperate for attention.

They had been right. She had. Until she’d learned that not all attention was good. Too late. But she’d learned.

Bram Gifford must wonder what he had to do to get some response from her. She hadn’t even squealed entertainingly at the thought of bugs in her sleeping bag. She was no fun at all, she told herself sternly, and caught herself grinning.

And on that cheering note she decided it was time for a shower and something to eat.

Twenty minutes later, wrapped in a towelling robe and with her hair in a turban, she padded back into the bedroom to look for something to wear. She picked up her wristwatch. It was gone three in the afternoon. No wonder she was hungry.

She crossed to the louvre doors and opened them. They were on the east of the island and the veranda was pleasantly shaded—something that Bram Gifford, stretched out on a cane lounger in a pair of shorts and T-shirt, was taking full advantage of.

He had terrific legs, she thought, before she could stop herself from looking. Sportsman’s legs—but more tennis pro than footballer, she thought. She’d become good at spotting the differences. Her mother loved sportsmen.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked, peeling off a pair of dark glasses and looking up from the latest bestselling legal thriller. Well, he was a lawyer. Maybe he was hoping to pick up some useful tips.

She fought down the urge to beat an immediate retreat to the safety of her bedroom, instead pulling the towel from her hair and shaking it out to dry naturally in the warmth. ‘Yes, thanks,’ she said, taking a wide-toothed comb from her pocket. Sleeping with her hair lose had its downside, she decided, easing it through the knots. ‘Hungry, though.’

‘There’s an all-day restaurant over by the pool. I checked it out when I had a look around earlier. The food’s good. There’s a shop, too.’ He indicated the book. ‘It has all the latest bestsellers. Including yours.’

‘They knew I was coming,’ she replied, unimpressed. ‘You didn’t take a nap?’

‘I made do with a swim. It’s better to tough it out if you can, keep local hours.’

‘Yes, well, not all of us are superhuman.’ She winced as the comb caught a tangle.

‘I’m not criticising, Flora. I got more sleep than you did on the plane, that’s all.’ He got up. ‘Here, let me do that.’ He took the comb from her, lifted a hank of wet hair and began to carefully tease through a difficult knot.

She kept very still. He was just combing through her hair, she told herself. It didn’t mean a thing. But her body wasn’t listening. It hadn’t been this close, this intimate with a man in a long time, and every cell seemed to swivel in his direction, attracted by the warm scent of his skin, the small, careful movements of his hand as he worked at the knot. His hair, gleaming in the bright air, slid forward as he bent to his task; the space between his eyes creased in concentration.

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