She had nothing worth stealing. He could hardly cheat her. What did she have? Half a farm, split five ways. She had so many encumbrances she felt weighed down with concrete.
If Marcus was marrying her for anything other than altruism then he had a big surprise coming, she decided.
He could have Harry.
The thought came out of left field and, surprisingly, it was good. Marcus would like Harry. Harry might even like Marcus. Harry was the smallest of her responsibilities but sometimes he felt the heaviest.
Yep. She might love Harry to bits but if Marcus wanted him… She was definitely ready to share.
Sharing. It was a good concept. A great concept. Even if it was pure fantasy.
But it was enough to distract her. Her mind stopped spinning just a little. Exhaustion took its toll.
Finally she slept.
She woke to shouting.
So what was new? People shouted in this place all the time. Half the inhabitants of this boarding house were drunk or stoned or both. But this time it was closer than usual.
Her dormitory held eight beds and the last four beds in the row were covered with fighting bodies. Someone was yelling; there were people punching, clawing, rolling.
There was the sound of broken glass and a woman screamed.
She opened her eyes and someone was grabbing her. Lifting.
‘Put me down!’ It was an instinctive scream of terror.
‘Don’t draw attention to yourself,’ her intended husband told her. ‘Is this your bag? Shut up and let me get you out of here.’
Marcus took her back to his apartment. He brooked no argument, hardly speaking until Robert had deposited them at the entrance to his apartment building, until they’d ridden the lift to the penthouse and he had her behind his closed door.
Even then he wouldn’t listen to protests.
‘I’m marrying you. That involves keeping you alive until at least tomorrow. So have the sense to obey orders.’
She was still dazed, doped with the pain-killers the doctors had given her. Three quarters asleep. But not so far gone that she couldn’t protest. She was balanced precariously on crutches. He’d carried her out of the seedy backpackers’ but that had been the end of his carrying role. She’d emerged to face the doorman of this luxury apartment block on her own two feet-just. ‘I’m not good at following orders,’ she managed.
‘How did I guess that?’ His severe mouth quirked upward into a wry smile. They were standing in the entrance to his apartment and all she could see was black marble and mirrors. If she wasn’t so dopey she’d panic, she thought. She should at least try.
‘I can’t stay here with you.’
‘I guessed you’d say that, too,’ he told her. He pointed to three doors. ‘Bathroom, bedroom, kitchen. I’m staying at my club. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘But…’
She gazed at him, confused beyond belief. This day had got away from her. All she knew was that somehow a day that had started as a disaster had somehow been salvaged, and it had been salvaged because of this man in his lovely suit, with his lovely eyes, with his lovely smile.
Yeah, she was getting maudlin, but he made her feel… He made her feel…
Not maudlin. Something very different from maudlin.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘It’s okay.’
‘I mean it.’ She reached forward and took his hand. Then, before he could guess what she intended, she raised her face and kissed him softly on the lips. It was a token kiss-a touch-a kiss of gratitude and weariness and need for human comfort. It shouldn’t have caused confusion but, as she stepped back, confusion was what she saw in his eyes.
‘Marcus…’
‘I’d better leave.’ His voice was strange. Husky. Unsure.
‘You don’t need to.’ She could sleep on the settee, she meant to say. She meant to add…something. But tiredness and the drugs she’d been given had the better of her and she couldn’t think of anything more to add.
What had she said? He didn’t need to leave? No. She was right. More than that; she very much wanted him to stay. She was so alone.
What a wimp. She caught herself, fighting for her dignity. Fighting through the haze of pain-killers for any sort of sense at all.
‘I meant…’
‘I know what you meant,’ he told her and he smiled. It was his smile that was her undoing, she thought desperately. It was a smile that twisted, distorted, changed her world.
‘But I still think I’d better go,’ he told her. He touched her, a feather-light fingertip tracing of her cheek. Was she imagining things-or was there reluctance to leave?
She couldn’t tell. She was in no fit state to tell anything at all.
He knew it. He swore softly. ‘Lock the door after me,’ he told her. ‘And stay safe until morning. No arguments.’
And that was that. He walked out and slammed the door behind him.
No arguments? She stared at the closed door. How could she argue when he was gone?
She was so befuddled she was past thinking. She gathered her crutches and limped forward, stunned. The first door led to the bedroom. To the bed. It was vast, piled high with a mountain of white pillows.
It looked wonderful.
There was silence all around her. There was silence for the first time since she’d reached this city.
No argument?
She had no argument at all. She hobbled to the bed, let her crutches fall-and let herself fall.
Wise or not, five minutes later she was asleep. But as she slept her fingers rested on her cheek-where Marcus’s fingers had touched.
And Marcus?
He lay in his bed at his club and he swore into the night. One ceremony and he was finished with her, he thought. One ceremony.
But when he’d walked into that place-had seen the louts fighting-men in a women’s dorm-crazy with drink- broken glass…
And Peta, sleeping as if she was so exhausted she couldn’t face waking, even to protect herself.
And then she’d kissed him. Her kiss… It had been so defenceless. So-
So he didn’t know what. All he knew was that when she’d asked that he stay it had taken all his self-possession not to gather her into his arms and sweep her into his bed.
I’ll look after her until she leaves New York, he told himself. That’s all I’ll do. And then I’ll forget her.
Yeah, right.
When Peta had arrived all she’d seen was the bed. And Marcus. When she woke she finally took in her surroundings and they weren’t to her taste at all.
She stretched in the vast, luxurious bed and gazed around her. And winced.
Lat night she’d been stunned, exhausted and doped with pain-killers. This morning…
This place might be comfortable, silent and safe but it was also sterile.
It was like something out of
At a guess it had been decorated by a professional whose brief was clinical, modern and masculine. The place
