Daniel's Bride (7 page)

“It’s very rare. Apparently.”

“What are the other grounds besides the, you know – consummation
ground.” Good grief. She barely knew the man and she was discussing sex with
him. Even people who had sex with strangers probably never talked about it.
They just went ahead and did it. “Are there others?”

“If I married you under false pretences that would qualify.
For example, if I tricked you, made out I was something I wasn’t.”

She grabbed this titbit like a cat hanging out for a piece
of fish. “That would work.”

He sighed, and said dispassionately, “No, it wouldn’t.
Because we are signing an agreement, albeit a private one, we both know what
will be expected from this marriage. That would hardly qualify as a false
pretence, Melinda, so a declaration of nullity won’t fly.”

She ran her hands across her face, her mind suddenly heavy
with exhaustion. The whole discussion about annulment was pointless anyway. Not
only had she been jilted, but she was now incapable of having sex with her own
husband – or even worse, incapable of making him want sex with her. Her face
suddenly burnt with the heat of it.

“This can be kept quiet,” Daniel told her. “No one needs to
know, if that’s what concerns you. And I think it is.”

She breathed in deep. “It is. I’d be very worried about my
mother.” She looked into his eyes, and was startled to feel herself being drawn
in. What else was lurking behind them? Would he be a devoted husband, an
adoring father? It was hard to imagine when he was looking at her in a way that
wouldn’t be out of place at an executive meeting in a boardroom.

“Would I be expected to be a corporate wife?” she asked. “To
attend functions and host dinners and do whatever it is you people do?”

Daniel arched his eyebrows. “We people don’t do functions. I
do not as a rule end up in the gossip pages of the media.”

That was true. She was as voracious a reader of the
celebrity pages as anyone and now she thought about it, his name had never
appeared there, that she’d been aware of.

“Though,” he admitted, “if something happens to bring this
to the attention of people who have nothing better to write about, I’m prepared
to ride it out.”

“What about your staff? What about Nora?”

“Nora has never expressed any interest in my personal life.”
He scratched his chin. “I have a housekeeper, Patsy, but she has worked for me
for five years.” He rapped his fingernails on the table top. “She would be
curious, but she is also loyal and I pay her very well. I believe she could be
included in the –”

“The deception?”

He inhaled sharply. “The plan.”

She mulled it over some more in her mind. That seemed to be all
the bases. But it was still absurd. “Are you sure there aren’t any other
reasons why the marriage could be annulled besides the …” Her face heated
again, and she focused on a framed photograph of a waterfall on the wall behind
him. “Besides having to mention –”

“The sex thing?”

“Yes.” It made her uncomfortable just thinking about it. Not
the sex but the fact they were talking about it so dispassionately as if it
were just another bodily function like blowing your nose or going to the
toilet. Though to a man like Daniel, no doubt it was a meaningless need to be
slaked. He had the appearance of a man of great virility. Whereas to a woman
like herself, it was a lot more than that.

She folded her arms across her chest and watched him
curiously as a thought occurred to her. “You’ll be tarnished with the same
brush.”

“The same brush?” His eyes narrowed. “What brush is that
exactly?”

“Of…not being able…to consummate…” Her voice trailed off as
sweat broke out at the nape of her neck. She was so far out of her league
referring to sex with a man who could probably make a woman melt with one
entirely chaste kiss.

His mouth curled, his expression bemused. “Trust me,
Melinda. That has never been a problem and I can assure you, never will be.”

“For you, sure,” she blurted. “The fact is, you’ve
probably…whereas I have never… I mean, I was engaged but even then, we
never…that is, I haven’t…ever…”

Heat swamped her face. She pushed herself away from the
table, grabbed her bag.

She looked at a place somewhere over his shoulder, where she
didn’t have to see what he was thinking, and announced with as much cool as she
could muster, “I’m going to the ladies.”

Daniel found himself frozen to the spot as Mel disappeared
around the corner to the ladies restoom, the only thing left in her wake the
scent of her perfume – and the meaning behind her words. He quickly reached for
his wine, drained the glass in one smooth swallow and filled the glass from the
bottle. His hand shook, and wine sloshed on the cloth.

He’d misinterpreted what she’d said.
Surely
. He
grabbed his napkin and dabbed at the red stain. She was twenty six years old
for goodness sake.

She had just admitted she was a virgin. Admitted that she
had never made love, not even with her fiance.

His phone rang, he reached for it and checked the screen.
Hugh.

“Have you asked her yet?” Hugh demanded.

Daniel glanced broodingly across to the rest room area. “I
did. And the idea of getting a divorce did not go down well.” He breathed in
deep. “Deep down, Mel is as conservative as they come. She appears to have a
great deal of respect for marriage.” Especially, he thought drily, if she was
saving herself for it.

Hugh cursed blatantly down the line. Then he paused. “Did
you happen to mention the, aaah –”

He appeared to be having trouble saying the word. “The
annulment?” Daniel said for him. “Yes. I did.”

“Good.” Hugh hesitated, coughed. “And?”

“It held even less appeal. The idea that not only was she
jilted by her fiancé, but that she would effectively be “annulled” because of
non-consummation was a no go.” Dryly, he added, “Which doesn’t surprise me.
Considering she as good as admitted she’s a virgin.”

More expletives flew from Hugh’s mouth. When he had himself
under control, he said, “You may be right about her inclination to conservatism,
but I had lunch with her yesterday and I’m telling you, she won’t admit it, but
that girl craves security.”

“You got all that from what she didn’t say?”

“I read between the lines. I could read Joss like a book.”

“That comes from being married to the same woman for over
forty years.” Daniel kept an eye on the entrance to the rest rooms. “It doesn’t
come from an hour over lunch.”

He ran his hands over his face in an effort to ease the
tension sitting permanently under his skin. “Hugh, whatever happens, we can’t
mention a thing of this to Grandfather.”

“Noted,” agreed Hugh. “His health is declining far too
rapidly. I saw him this morning. He’s finding it a strain to even brush
Barnaby.”

Daniel narrowed his gaze at nothing. “That damned dog has to
be doing more harm than good.”

“Try getting Barnaby away from your grandfather. It’ll never
happen.”

A waitress came, took his plate, her gaze lingering a moment
on him. He gave a non-committal smile and focused on the rest room area where he
expected Mel to return from any second. “I’ll be in touch when I know more.”

He disconnected the call, and slotted the phone into his
pocket.

Frustration welled inside him. Mel Green would be Mrs Daniel
Christie. If he had to offer more money, he would do it, because he of all
people understood the value of it. He’d spent his life knowing people who
craved money, who loved it with an obsession, and if enough was offered, would
do anything for it. With some people, though, it might take some persuasion, but
everyone had a price. You just had to name it.

If Mel didn’t agree, yes, he could still find himself a
bride in twenty-four hours from the mix of ex-girlfriends who would have given
up their virginity like a shot for the role. But he wasn’t about to subject
himself to six months of hell with women who possessed sexual allure but whose
self-obsession or need for affirmation would drive him crazy. Sadly, those were
the women he had tended to date.

He frowned and reached for his glass of wine.

His mother had been of that ilk. For a moment a picture of
her flashed in his mind. Black hair, darker eyes, a beautiful, fashionable
woman who had begun life as a catwalk model and believed she had found the
answer marrying Duncan Christie, the handsome heir to the Christie fortune.
Now, she was a shadowy figure, a memory of childhood, the mother who had left
suddenly and never came back. At the time, he hadn’t understood that. It had
been years before his father had told him the truth, that she had accepted
money to leave her boys and had chosen not to see them again. His gut clenched
as he thought of Everett and Sean. They’d been babies when their mother had
deserted them. As much as he held them responsible for their own actions now,
for the decisions they’d made and continued to make, they had suffered extreme
loss because of their mother. They had needed someone to love them, not the
housekeeper and the nannies but a real mother and their scarred father had
never had the heart to try and find one for them.

What a mess they all were, Daniel thought wryly. A mother
who wanted money and had taken it to leave. A father who would have been happy
with none and resented the responsibility their wealth demanded.

And here he was. A Christie who thrived on it, who loved the
challenges that running this empire gave him. Who, from the time his father had
died, had made it his business to make the company his own, to leave his own
legacy, his own imprint. And yet here he was now considering marriage to a
woman he didn’t know and only somewhat liked, to appease his own guilt at
failing his grandfather.

He tightened his grip on the glass and slugged back the
remainder of the wine and prayed Mel would somehow go against the person she
was, that normal human greed he saw so often in others and despised would
triumph in her, and she would agree to this.

Ellie Green had lived at the Gertrude Ellerm Retirement
Complex for the past year. Every time Mel visited her, she hoped and prayed
that one day, one day soon, her mother would be able to live independently,
just like she had the first 58 years of her life. It was going to happen. Mel
was going to make it happen.

Mel set about making a pot of Earl Grey tea, cut a small
fruit cake in to slices, and took two dainty china mugs from the cupboard. It
was a ritual she’d come to depend on, that provided them both with a sense of
consistency in a life that had not been normal since the stroke that had left
Ellie partially paralyzed and with a tendency to have seizures. The therapy she
had undergone in those first few months had been intensive and loaded with
frustration, but had helped her regain much of her memory and her speech.
Unfortunately, it had not helped with her movement.

In many ways, Ellie hadn’t changed. She had the same sense
of humour, still supported the local rugby team, loved the same cosy mysteries
and thrillers, even if she struggled more with the written word than she once
had. But she was so young, and at her age, a stroke had been a shock to
everyone.

“I spoke with your doctor,” Mel commented as she poured the
tea, and added a generous slosh of milk in each cup. She stirred sugar into her
mother’s tea, then for good measure reverse stirred. She’d noted Daniel had
stirred sugar into his coffee that way at lunch. Her chest tightened. Ever
since that insane proposal, it had been doing that nonstop and the feeling was
getting uncomfortable. She’d had to rub her chest a few times in public just to
get rid of the tightness, and endured suspicious looks in the process. Even more
annoying, she’d spent two hours at the library on the internet researching the
man, looking for anything that would indicate he was either a psychopath or
morally reprehensible. She’d found neither.

She set the spoon down and bit back on a long drawn out
sigh. She seemed to be sighing all the time now and one of the librarians had
even asked her if she was having trouble breathing and needed fresh air. She
tried to imagine Daniel sitting here, joining them for a cup of tea and a slice
of cake but couldn’t. He’d look preposterous drinking tea out of a dainty china
mug.

Yet she needed to make a decision. Because when she’d left
the office after work last night, she hadn’t left with an emphatic ‘no.’ She’d
told him she’d think about it, and that she’d let him know in forty-eight
hours.

Mel sighed again. Her mother said, “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yep. I’m fine.” She put the tea and cake for her mother on
the side table alongside her chair, and took her own cup but left the cake.
She’d eaten too much yesterday. Far from her appetite vanishing, she had
returned to the table, proceeded to stress-eat all her penne, devoured an apple
pie for desert, and then finished it off with a tall, sweet latte as well.

Mel glanced around at her mother’s tired looking room and
tried to assess it objectively. The Trust that owned the rest home had
scheduled this block of flats for refurbishment but it was likely to be years
away yet. That was one of the reasons Ellie had been able to get this place
when the impracticalities of her old place meant she couldn’t go back.

“What did the doctor say?” Ellie sipped her tea, her gaze
expectantly on Mel. The hairdresser had cut her hair last week and it looked
appalling. Her mum had always worn her hair to her shoulders, now it was short
and spiky. It didn’t suit her but at least in a month or so it would have grown
out.

Mel focused back on the doctor. “He said you’re doing well.”
He had actually said her mother was losing some enthusiasm, and he was worried.
He was their family doctor, and he’d treated Mel since she was at kindergarten.
He’d called in regularly to see Ellie after the stroke, and he’d been a
lifeline of support, had been the one who suggested this complex while they
made decisions. Again he’d suggested a move to a better facility but he knew it
was unlikely. Mel let out another sigh. They could barely afford this place as
it was, and it was subsidised by the trust. And while Ellie was comfortable
here, it had never been permanent.