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Authors: Kim Lawrence

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BOOK: Wedding-Night Baby
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‘I'm a firm believer in flexi-hours,' he said with a husky
rasp in his voice. ‘Get dressed, Georgina; I'm hungry.' The expression she glimpsed in his eyes made his words open to interpretation and her knees turn to cotton wool. ‘If you don't get dressed I'll help you.'
‘You wouldn't dare!' A quirk of one well-defined eyebrow and a slow smile dispelled any illusions she had on that score. ‘I don't want to go to dinner with you.' A sudden sound emerged from between her clenched teeth. Half-anguish, half-outrage. ‘What about your wife?' God, I was going to taunt him with a nice mixture of composure and disdain and here I am squeaking like an agitated mouse, she thought.
The deep blue eyes which had been narrowed in speculation suddenly widened. The rat! she thought wrathfully. He only feels guilty when he's caught out. ‘Which one would that be?' he enquired with cautious interest.
‘Very droll,' she snapped. ‘Though I doubt if Tricia would appreciate the humour. Being made party to adultery is not my idea of a joke either.'
‘Actually I've arranged to meet her for drinks after dinner. You can come along too as you're so interested in my personal life.' His smile grew as her bosom heaved in agitation.
‘She knows about us?'
‘Us.' He gave a soulful sigh. ‘You do care after all. What's wrong, Georgina?' he asked with a perplexed look. ‘Do you have a problem with the arrangement?'
‘Why, you...' Colour wildly fluctuating, she stared at him in sick horror.
‘She'll be with her husband—my brother—if that makes a difference.'
Sister-in-law! She felt her cheeks ignite with fiery embarrassment ‘Oh,' she said in a rather forlorn voice.
He folded his arms across his chest and she could see the shadow of body hair through the thin fabric of his shirt.
Her stomach muscles quivered as she tried hard to avert her stare. ‘You weren't so tongue-tied a few minutes ago when reading me the Riot Act. Is that all the apology I'm going to get?'
‘Under the circumstances it was a perfectly natural mistake to make,' she said defensively. Apologising to him was marginally more difficult than chopping off her own finger.
‘Which circumstances are those? Your lurid imagination, or your high opinion of my moral fibre?'
She sniffed. ‘I should have known no woman would be fool enough to marry you.'
‘I didn't say I wasn't married,' he interjected softly.
She swallowed hard. ‘Well...are you?' she said tightly as he continued to watch her with that infuriating sphinx-like impassivity. ‘It's bad enough I slept with you at all without that.'
A curious expression entered his eyes. ‘It would bother you that much?'
‘As a matter of fact, yes, it would.'
‘From that am I to infer you believe in the sanctity of marriage and all that jazz?' His tone was faintly mocking but his eyes, holding hers, were strangely serious. ‘I think you'll find scruples like that might hinder your meteoric rise, Georgina.'
‘You still haven't answered me.' He really did like to extract every last ounce of agony from a situation, she thought resentfully.
He reached forward and his thumb stroked across the side of her cheek. ‘Always the best man, never the groom,' he said sorrowfully.
‘Best!' She snorted, flinching away from the touch which prickled like an electrical current across her skin. ‘That's a matter of opinion,' she said huskily. The anxiety
dissolved, only to be replaced by another tension, one no less intense.
‘I'm surprised your cynical little heart has room for such elevated moral standards, let alone any belief in the sanctity of marriage. I thought the scars of your parents' marriage would have cured you of any romantic notions.'
What had she told him? She flushed, recalling the disastrous wedding day when her unguarded confidences had spilled out. Of late she'd had reason to question her judgemental attitude towards her mother's weaknesses. Having experienced firsthand how powerful the blind, primitive force to mate could be, her smug, complacent superiority had been shaken to its core.
‘I know men are congenitally incapable of being faithful. '
‘Isn't that a bit sweeping?'
‘I think my illusions are my concern, not yours, but be assured I have none about you.'
‘Actually we're both the product of unsuccessful marriages,' he observed with a thin smile. ‘Dysfunctional—isn't that the popular term? I'm surprised you were so anxious to perpetuate the error yourself, but then history does suggest people are incapable of learning by their mistakes. Or, in this case, your parents' mistakes.'
‘Don't you intend to marry?' she asked curiously.
‘Not to satisfy any primitive desire to possess a woman. That situation can be achieved without any formal contract,' he said, his eyes flicking over her with insulting familiarity. ‘Choosing a mate shouldn't be done in a rush of hormones or for mushily sentimental reasons,' he said with confident scorn. ‘I shall marry someone whose expectations are similar to my own.'
Does such a creature exist? she wondered doubtfully. She was glad her own experiences hadn't left her quite that disillusioned. What had soured Callum Stewart so profoundly?
‘Will you have children? Or will that be too messy?' she asked sarcastically. She was appalled by the sterile scenario he painted of marriage. Could a man who was obviously capable of passion really be satisfied with such an arrangement?
‘That's the only reason I'd ever consider entering into that particular contract.'
‘I hope the job pays well,' she observed flippantly. ‘Because you might find there aren't too many takers.'
‘Thanks for the concern, but I wasn't considering you for the post'
‘I'm devastated,' she hissed.
‘I know I'm a fascinating subject but aren't you going to get dressed?'
Georgina gave a sigh of pure frustration. ‘I can give you a progress report here,' she said. ‘Though why the morning won't do...'
‘In the morning I'm off to France,' he explained shortly. With an expression she didn't trust he looked thoughtfully around the room, his eyes dwelling outrageously on the open door to her bedroom. ‘Mind you, an evening in might be quite cosy,' he observed silkily. ‘Can you cook?' he enquired, all blue-eyed innocence.
His husky laughter followed her retreat to the bedroom and, leaning against the door, she gave a tremulous sigh. He'd been baiting her, she knew it, but if he'd known how beguiling the idea had been—cooking for Callum, sharing the food and her small, narrow bed...
I'm going mad! She licked her dry lips and raked a hand through her hair with a trembling hand. Seeing him in public was a far safer bet than seeing him in privacy, she decided, opening her wardrobe door and surveying the contents with a frown.
She hadn't selected her outfit with any desire to please him, she told herself firmly, surveying the end product of
her deliberations a few minutes later. This dress was the one she always wheeled out on vaguely dressy occasions. It was the archetypal little black number—a plain sleeveless shift with a row of beading around the above-the-knee-length hemline that made the garment move against her legs as she walked with a pleasing swishing sensation that had always seemed deliciously decadent to her.
Decadent was not a frame of mind she ought to cultivate at this particular moment! she thought, her second attempt to pin up her hair ending in another failure as a shower of clips slid down her neck and the heavy tresses followed suit, spilling down her back like a river touched with the lustre of a setting sun. She stifled a sound of frustration.
‘If you're not ready in thirty seconds I'll come and help.'
The voice from the other room made her throw down her hairbrush and, after a brief glance at her freshly applied lipstick, head for the door. I never was much good at entrances, she thought wryly, pausing with her hand on the doorhandle, but here goes!
She decided to look everywhere but at Callum, which was quite difficult because it wasn't a big room and he was a big man. He certainly seemed to make things seem distinctly claustrophobic.
‘I know a lot of women—'
‘I just bet you do,' she snapped.
‘—who would envy you for being able to produce this sort of result in minutes.'
She blinked, swallowed convulsively and forgot she wasn't going to look into those eyes—eyes that seemed deep enough to drown in. God, I'm getting positively mushy, she thought with vaguely desperate humour. The black rings around his irises made the colour appear even more dense. It was the expression in them, not the colour,
however, that made her twitch the hem of her dress like a nervous child.
A muscle flexed along his angular jaw as he contemplated the picture she made standing watching him with wide-eyed trepidation. The sensuous appreciation of his expression shifted to something else before abruptly hardening. He straightened up and made a sharp gesture towards the door. ‘Time we were off.'
Close but not touching, he ushered her down to his car.
‘More room in this than my Beetle for your legs,' she observed, sinking into the leather upholstery. It was a long, low-slung coupé—the sort of thing which made people stare, which was a definite detraction from its obvious attractions in her mind. She wished quite a lot that she hadn't thought about his legs—long, athletic legs with just the right amount of muscle power and that light sprinkling of dark hair.
Callum slid in beside her but he didn't appear to notice her comment. Her furtive glance in the direction of his legs and her visible gulp he did notice. ‘I like your legs too,' he said in a low, throaty voice that made all the small, downy hairs on her arms stand on end.
She gave a startled gasp and turned her head to look at him. It was like stepping off a cliff; the warm, dark chasm was frightening yet heart-stoppingly enticing. He reached out a hand and traced the line of her collar-bone. It moved to the angle of her chin and cradled her jaw. She found her cheek turning to rest in the large palm.
‘We don't have to go to dinner,' he suggested, and the smoky invitation in his voice liquefied every ounce of her resistance. Molten and warm, the desire moved through her pliant body like a storm.
In a minute he was going to kiss her and the anticipation was unbearable. She could hear the harsh sound of her swift inhalations as her whole body centred on the imminent
invasion of his mouth... the taste and texture. The blast of a horn and the glaring lights of a passing car were all that stopped the escalation of this insanity.
She drew back, placing her hands on her lips. ‘For God's sake, start the car up!' she pleaded, not looking at him.
He cursed with impressive fluency and the car shot forward. Georgina was learning fast not to overestimate her own powers of resistance or his of perseverance. It was a humbling lesson.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘T
HEY APPEAR TO know you here,' Georgina observed, after Callum had ordered the wine without consulting her. At least he hadn't interrupted as she'd given her order; she ought to be grateful that at least his appalling take-charge style didn't extend that far. She glanced at her starter and smiled faintly at the waiter, who silently withdrew.
‘I'm staying here.'
The knowledge that he had a room just a lift-ride away made her neck ache even more than it already did; her muscles were twisted in tortured knots of tension. Heat scalded the back of her eyes as she briefly let her mind run over a scenario where Callum led her back to his room. The graphic images didn't end there! With a horrified start she halted her wayward imagination.
‘You can drink it,' he said, nodding at her untouched wine. ‘I'm not trying to get you drunk. You fall asleep, I seem to remember.'
Recalled from her abstraction, she gave him a glare of dislike. ‘You really enjoy reminding me of that, don't you?' Self-disgust shone in her eyes as she looked at him.
‘Are you always so tough on yourself?'
‘I'll leave that to you,' she responded, surprised by his question.
‘I won't make any allowances for you just because of our personal relationship,' he conceded.
‘We don't
have
a relationship,' she retorted, twisting her napkin in her lap, her fingers trembling slightly.
‘Has it thrown your calculations, actually wanting to sleep with me?'
She glared at his superbly confident features with simmering resentment. ‘You really do think you're irresistible, don't you?' she breathed incredulously. ‘It borders on the pathetic,' she added scornfully.
‘At least you made... what was he called?... Alex jealous. Wasn't that what you set out to do?' Callum asked with the sort of smug superiority that made her teeth clamp hard on her lower lip. ‘If we're talking pathetic...'
‘I wasn't prepared to pay that price.'
‘You seemed to enjoy paying the price at the time,' he observed, with a reminiscent look that sent hot colour flooding into her cheeks. ‘Don't take the moral high ground with me, Georgina; you're as susceptible to the same appetites as the rest of us.'
‘I thought you wanted a report,' she snapped. The petulant sound in her voice made her wince.
‘I'm listening,' he said shortly. Leaning back in his chair, he levelled his disconcerting, unblinking stare directly at her.
He did listen, interrupting only to ask a few pertinent questions. ‘You've been a busy little bee, haven't you?' he said when she'd finished.
‘Denigrating and patronising are two terms which immediately spring to mind,' she observed, stabbing her asparagus-flavoured mousse with unwarranted force. She speared a prawn and bit into it viciously. She'd not just done well, she'd achieved miracles, and pacified several ruffled male egos into the bargain.
Amazingly he laughed. ‘I'm impressed. Is that better?' The cleft that bisected his square chin deepened as he grinned.
‘Much better,' she agreed huskily. He did have the most extraordinarily attractive laugh, she thought with a hint of
wistfulness. ‘I thought you were hungry; you haven't touched anything.' Her eyes flicked to his plate, partly to force her gaze away from his face.
‘If I had, you'd probably have accused me of not giving you my undivided attention,' he observed with a teasing note in his voice. ‘You don't treat me with the deference I've grown to expect, Georgina,' he told her, self-mockery flavouring his words. ‘I've never been called sir so frequently in my life as since I arrived here.'
‘There's not much point in me joining the queue to lick your boots; I'm already sacked, aren't I?'
‘You handed in your notice, as I recall,' he said drily.
‘It amounts to the same thing. I just beat you to it, that's all. Or are you going to say you hadn't intended throwing me out on my ear?'
‘When it came down to it I just couldn't bear to be parted from you, darling.' His blue-eyed mockery made her teeth clench. ‘I was forgetting that now you're a woman of substance you can afford to behave recklessly. Can't you, Georgina?'
The cynical twist of his lips as much as his words spoilt the brief illusion of harmony. Behaving recklessly was what had created this hateful situation to begin with!
‘It's marvellous,' she agreed. ‘I don't even have to sleep with the boss any more. Such a relief,' she drawled, rolling her eyes heavenwards. She saw his lips curl in disdain.
‘I thought you managed to keep Oliver at arm's length
and
hold his interest, or was that just an idle boast? You're such a very versatile girl, I was inclined to believe you. I'm your boss now...you could sleep with me,' he offered generously. ‘But it won't get you mentioned in my will, or even promoted.'
She wasn't calm enough to decide whether he really did think she was an unscrupulous slut or just enjoyed insulting her, but she wanted, quite desperately, to wipe that
supercilious smirk off his face! ‘In that case it's hardly worth my while, is it? I'll pass,' she said from between lips firmly committed to a smile. ‘After all, isn't Peter Llewellyn going to be the man who matters in future? I'll practise my sultry seduction on him. Incidentally, I really admire you for admitting you're just not up to the task of running the agency.'
‘I can't get worked up about the packaging of a new chocolate bar or the packaging of a recycled politician,' he agreed with a shrug. ‘Call it a genetic flaw. Mallory's needs someone dynamic at the helm and no one in-house had the requirements. At least with Peter available I don't have to waste any more time here. Oliver knew I wouldn't be stepping into his shoes, but he also knew I wouldn't let what he'd built up crumble. He had no children; I think the agency was his contribution to posterity.'
‘I think that's sad.'
‘So do I,' he agreed unexpectedly.
She was still angry with him for the offhand, disparaging way he'd spoken about the agency. ‘Of course, you're probably happier treading grapes or doing something rustic and fulfilling.' For some bizarre reason she suddenly had a vivid image of Callum stripped to the waist, his skin gleaming with labour's sweat, and she lost the thread of her vitriolic outburst completely. A small, inarticulate gurgle escaped her lips and she picked up her glass and took a healthy swallow of the pale liquid. Callum's own children would be conceived in a heartless marriage of convenience if he was to be believed.
‘Do you like that?'
His words took her by surprise but she nodded as she tasted the warm, buttery aftertaste on her tongue and struggled to regain her composure.
‘Then I must have been treading the grapes properly,' he said, watching her eyes dart to the bottle. ‘A nice Chardonnay,
but our Botrytis Semillon is the best thing we've done yet. It's an intense, late-harvest wine that I personally think can rival the best Sauternes available,' he observed confidently. ‘New South Wales has a climate not dissimilar to that of the South of France. In Wollundra, for example, we're lucky with the climate; it's a hilly area and quite far south. I think you'll find our label on a lot of the better wine lists.
‘As for the property... When it comes down to it, you're right—it is a farm, on a large scale. Doing what I do, I can be involved in every stage from the planting of the vines to the distribution and marketing. I find it satisfying to see the end result of my labour and to know the label—' he touched the striking gold motif on the bottle ‘—will be seen as a guarantee of quality.' His voice had a vibrant edge of enthusiasm and she realised how inspiring he could be when he chose to exercise his authority.
‘Each to his own, I suppose,' she conceded. ‘You have all that,' she said, ‘yet you're off to France to start all over again. Some people are never satisfied.' In his own way Callum was as driven to succeed as Oliver had been, and, she suspected, just as ruthless.
‘I like a challenge,' he said simply. ‘Wollundra is in safe hands.'
‘If you have a brother why didn't Oliver leave the company to you both? Your brother must be the elder.' She thought she might as well take advantage of his unusually expansive mood to satisfy some of her curiosity.
‘Why do you say that?'
‘He has the property, doesn't he? The elder-son-inheriting-the-kingdom thing.' Callum's words hadn't actually spelt it out but he obviously belonged to the Antipodean landed gentry.
‘Rick is my younger brother. My half-brother,' he added, his expression strangely shuttered.
‘Then why—?' she began.
‘You really are a curious little cat, aren't you?' he observed, leaning over the table. His gaze touched the line of her throat, making a natural progression downwards until it reached the high curve of her bosom. His large, capable hands curled on the table and she watched his knuckles grow white.
An illicit excitement sent a surge of searing heat through her body. She imagined his hands stroking her skin and she had the curious conviction that his own imagination was running along similar lines.
‘Oliver's sister—my mother—is Ruth Mallory.'
‘The opera singer!' she said with a gasp of shock that jolted her free of the sensual preoccupation. For one thing Ruth Mallory didn't look old enough to be the parent of this specimen of manhood and, for another, Oliver had never mentioned a word about his sister's fame.
‘Is there any other?' he drawled. ‘Mother spent the first year of my life at Wollundra before she decided her interrupted career meant more to her than a husband and baby.'
His sneer held black humour, and exposure to his emotions made Georgina experience a paralysing surge of empathy. She swallowed hard to control the strength of her emotional response.
‘My dad was devastated,' he continued sombrely. ‘But, happily for him, he met Susie, Rick's mom, and the happy ending was in sight. When Dad remarried, my mother suddenly rediscovered maternal bonding and my presence at her side became essential for her continued happiness.' His cynical smile deepened and his eyes grew cold as he recalled the past.
‘She
didn't want her “happy family,” but Susie sure as hell wasn't going to have it.'
His eyes were expressionless as they flicked over her face but Georgina could feel the bitterness behind each word. ‘After that I paid the odd flying visit to Wollundra
when Ruth couldn't find anywhere else to dump me.' The resentment was under control and muted now, but Georgina could see that coming to terms with it had taken him time and effort.
‘Rick grew up on the land; it's his.' He moved his hands in an expansive, elegant gesture. ‘Dad wanted to—' He broke off and shook his head dismissively. Stupidly she wanted to brush back the wing of hair that flopped onto his forehead. ‘I got what I wanted—the piece of land my grandmother had grown vines on when they'd pioneered the place. She was of Italian extraction...perhaps it's in the blood.' His grin was unselfconsciously charismatic. ‘Life history over... Happy now?'
She had the impression he vaguely regretted telling her so much, enough to fire her imagination so she could fill in any blanks for herself. She could clearly see the boy, torn from the land and family he loved, used as an accessory for a glittering celebrity. Some people might have grown to envy and hate the half-brother who had, to all intents and purposes, taken their place, but Georgina only heard affection in Callum's voice when he spoke of the younger man. And his deep antipathy to her was easily explained now he equated what he viewed as her ruthless ambition with that of the famous diva.
‘Your father must have known what your mother was when he married her,' she heard herself protesting.
‘He was blinded by love,' Callum sneered disdainfully. ‘Or at least a strong sexual attraction,' he moderated. ‘Such a purely physical attraction couldn't be expected to withstand the realities of life. Like us, they should have had a wild fling and then just sent Christmas cards to each other,' he said, with a flippancy that cut her somewhere deep inside. ‘It would have saved a lot of grief in the end.'
His sudden reference to their own situation made her knock over her wine. A waiter politely dismissed her stumbling
apologies and she was glad the incident gave her time to gather her straying wits.
‘Perhaps your parents weren't blessed with divine foresight, unlike you. Mind you, it's gone astray this time. I've no intention of having an affair, wild or otherwise, with you.'
His feral smile in response to her pugnacious announcement filled her with a deep sense of foreboding. ‘Perhaps I didn't satisfy you in bed,' he suggested silkily.
Under the unremitting interrogation of his blue eyes she flushed uncomfortably. Was he too recalling her hoarse cries of astonishment and husky entreaty? It was devastating to recall, at any time, the way her passion and need had escalated. Under the glittering glare of his eyes it was agonising.
BOOK: Wedding-Night Baby
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