Merger By Matrimony (5 page)

She threw him a wilted looked and stifled a yawn.

‘Mmm.
That
interesting, was it?' A wicked glint of humour shone in his eyes.

‘I wasn't trying to make a comment on what the meeting was like,' Destiny said with lukewarm protest in her voice. ‘I'm tired.'

‘Leave her alone, Callum,' Stephanie said sympathetically.

‘Business has to be discussed, Steph.'

‘Why now? It's so boring.'

‘Boring for
you
perhaps, but you want to remember that your finances are tied up with what happens next in this little exciting scenario. I buy the company, play with it a bit until it's running along smoothly, and
your
shares go up. Our Panamanian heiress keeps the company and—'

‘Do you mind
not
talking as if I wasn't here?'

‘Have you ever been to London before, Destiny?' Stephanie linked her arm through her stepcousin's and ushered her to the front door, pointedly turning her back on her fiancée.

‘No. It's all new and—' she glanced over her shoulder and her eyes clashed with Callum's ‘—a little scary.'

‘It would be. You're just so brave to come all this way, on your own. I'd never dream of doing it!'

‘No.' Callum's voice behind them was silky. ‘It takes a certain type of woman to do that. Some might call it brave, darling; others might just call it—well, let's just say that it's a very
masculine
response.'

At which Stephanie flew around to face him with her hands on her hips and a simmering look in her baby-blue eyes. ‘Don't be
horrible!
'

‘Me?' He raised both his hands in innocent denial, but the blue eyes that locked with Destiny's were unrepentant. ‘Horrible? It was meant to be a
compliment!
A glorious example of how far the women's movement has got!'

‘What women's movement?' Destiny asked, her body language echoing Stephanie's. ‘I've never been a part of any movement in my life before!'

‘No?' He tried to stifle a grin and failed miserably. ‘Well, let's just say that feminism has missed out there.'

‘Meaning what?'

‘Meaning that I'll give you a lift back to your place.' He bent over to give Stephanie a gentlemanly peck on the cheek and a pat on the back. ‘That all right with you, darling?'

‘Don't badger her, Callum.'

‘I wish people wouldn't constantly stereotype me.' He pulled open the front door and gave Destiny an exaggeratedly wide berth to exit ahead of him into a clear night that was considerably more bracing than it had been earlier on in the evening.

‘What about tomorrow?' Stephanie asked him, standing in the doorway to see them off, an angelic, diminutive shape that made Destiny feel like an Amazonian hulk in comparison. ‘The Holts have invited us to supper. Did you remember? Daisy and Clarence are going to be there as well. Oh, and Rupert.'

Callum paused and frowned, appearing to give the matter weighty thought, then he said with a shrug,

‘Meeting. Sorry, darling. You go, though. Don't stay in because of me.'

‘You're
always
at meetings,' Stephanie said in a childish, sulky voice. ‘He's
always
at meetings,' she addressed Destiny in an appeal to sisterhood, which Destiny took up with sadistic relish.

‘If he loved you, he'd cancel, I'm sure.'

‘If you loved me, you'd cancel.'

There was a brief silence. ‘I'll do my best.' He sighed and Stephanie's face radiated at this unexpected victory.

‘Oh, goody!' She blew them both a delighted kiss and shut the front door on them.

‘T
HANK
you. Thank you very much,' he grated sarcastically, as the engine of his powerful car purred into life. He pulled away from the kerb unnecessarily fast and Destiny clutched the car door handle to steady herself.

In the shadows of the car, his averted profile was hard and unsmiling and she had to stifle a desire to burst out laughing. Suddenly, sleep was no longer beckoning at her door. In fact, she felt surprisingly revived, and wondered whether her body might not just have been craving some fresh air.

Not that the London air was particularly fresh. Back in Panama, when she breathed in, she could smell everything. The musky aroma of hot, hard-packed dirt, the rich fullness of the trees and the bushes, the distant freshness of the snake-like river coiling its way lazily into the heart of the jungle. At certain times during the day she could smell the fragrance of food being cooked. Sometimes, when she closed her eyes, she could almost seem to detect the smells of the sky and the clouds and the stillness.

Here, she felt stuffy. Pollution, of course. Not as severe as she had seen in Mexico years ago, where the pollution bordered on contamination, but there nevertheless, unseen but ever-present.

‘Thank you for what?' she asked innocently, playing him at his own game, and his mouth turned down darkly at the corners.

‘You
know
what for,' he accused, looking away briefly from the empty road to glare at her. ‘I'd hoped Stephanie
had forgotten all about that damned dinner party. Now I'm going to have to go and spend at least three agonising hours being bored to death by Rupert and his cronies.'

‘Oh, dear,' she said unsympathetically, which provoked another blistering look.

‘Where,' he asked, ‘did you get that?'

‘Get what?' Her voice was genuinely surprised.

‘Your sarcasm. I always thought that missionaries were supposed to be glucose-sweet.'

Destiny bristled. ‘I am
not
a missionary, actually. If you'd done your homework properly, you might have discovered
why
we're on a compound in the heart of Panama, and it has nothing to do with converting anyone to any kind of religion. We're there to help educate people in desperate need of education, and I'm not really talking about reading, writing and arithmetic.'

‘What, then?' He could feel himself reluctantly being drawn in, like a fish on the end of a line, curious to find out details of the background that had produced the creature sitting next to him. It felt peculiar to find himself hanging on to a woman's conversation when normally he was the one playing the conversational game, digging into his reserves of wit and charm without even realising it. He wasn't sure whether he liked it or not. He felt himself relax his foot on the accelerator so that the car meandered along.

‘We teach them how to use the land they have to maximise their crops—how to be self-sufficient, in other words. We help them with distributing crafts. Some of them make things for the tourist market in the city. And naturally we teach them the usual stuff.'

‘We?'

‘Yes. All of us. We work together. I'm a qualified doctor, but I'm also responsible for the formal classes.
Of course, we have specialists on the compound as well. Not just the children need education; so do the adults. How to use their resources to their best advantage, how to rotate certain crops so that the land is never unused. How to take advantage of the rains when they come. Our agricultural expert is responsible for that side of things, but we all chip in.'

‘Like one big happy family.'

Destiny narrowed her eyes on him, but she couldn't read his expression and his voice was mild.

‘Something like that.'

‘Cosy.'

‘Yes, it is. Why are you driving so slowly? I want to get back.'

Callum pressed his foot marginally harder on the accelerator and muttered something inconsequential about speed limits, fines and points on a driving licence.

‘What points?'

‘Never mind. It doesn't matter.' He felt his jaw begin to ache and realised that he was clenching his teeth. ‘So what do you do on those long, balmy evenings, anyway? On your compound?'

‘
Long, balmy evenings?
It's not a seaside resort.'

‘No, of course not.' Clenching again. He relaxed his jaw muscles and realised, with a twinge of disappointment, that her house was now within view. The guard barely glanced at them. He just waved them through and he pulled up very slowly in front of her house.

‘Thank you very much,' Destiny said, fiddling with the seat belt and finally releasing it. ‘It was lovely to meet Stephanie. I'm sorry if you think that it's my fault that you're going to have dinner with some boring friends tomorr—'

‘Oh, forget it.' He waved aside her apologies irritably
and watched as she walked up to the front door. For a tall girl, she was surprisingly agile, graceful even. She'd never answered his question about what she spent her evenings doing, he realised. He waited, watching as various lights were turned on and switched off, tracing her progress through the house, even though he couldn't see a thing because the curtains were all drawn. When the place was in darkness, he impulsively got out of his car, sprinted up to the front door and insistently buzzed the bell, keeping his finger on the button until he heard the sounds of shuffling behind the door.

This time Destiny looked through the peep hole and reluctantly opened the door. ‘What do you want
now?
'

‘It's that damned car,' he said, raking his fingers through his hair and casting an accusing look in the direction of the inert lump of silver metal on the road. ‘Won't start.'

‘What?'
She'd pulled on a robe over her long, baggy tee-shirt which served as a nightgown, and now she clutched it tighter around her as she continued to eye him with mounting dismay.

What now? She didn't want him in her house! When he wasn't getting on her nerves he was getting under her skin, and she had enough to cope with without Callum Ross sending her normally well-behaved nervous system into overdrive.

He shook his head and then glanced at her. ‘I wouldn't have bothered you… You hadn't got into bed as yet, had you?'

‘About to.'

‘Well, I wouldn't have troubled you, but it's given up on me and I need to use a phone.'

‘A phone? At
this
hour? Who are you going to phone
to fix your car at
this hour?
Do car mechanics work around the clock over here?'

‘If I could just come in—it's a bit nippy out here…'

For a few seconds she didn't look as though she was going to budge, but then she reluctantly stepped back and he slipped past her just in case she changed her mind and slammed the door in his face.

‘It seemed to be working perfectly fine on the drive over.' Destiny stood where she was and folded her arms.

‘Ah, yes. That's the problem, you see. I've been meaning to get it seen to for the past week or so, but I haven't managed to find a spare moment…to book it in to a garage. Didn't you notice that it was going particularly slowly on the way over here?'

Destiny inclined her head to one side and remained silent.

‘One minute it's absolutely fine; the next minute it's losing power.' He cleared his throat and attempted to take firm control of the proceedings instead of acting like a schoolboy caught doing something underhand. Smoking behind the bicycle shed.

‘The telephone's behind you.'

‘Ah, good. Good, good, good.' He lifted the receiver and dialled his driver. He felt a heel, actually, having to rouse the man from a deep sleep, but whoever said that life was fair? ‘Bennet's coming over as soon as he gets dressed. Might be half an hour or so.' He wondered whether she'd heard him murmuring indistinctly into the phone that there was no rush, within the hour would be fine. ‘Don't let me keep you from bed… You pop along…I'll stay down here. The family silver's safe.'

Destiny clicked her tongue in annoyance and headed towards the kitchen. ‘I might as well make you a cup of coffee,' she offered grudgingly.

‘Don't put yourself out,' he said, following her and then lounging comfortably on one of the kitchen chairs while she filled the kettle and fetched two mugs down from a cupboard. ‘Although,' he said pensively, ‘you
do
owe me a favour after your trapping me into tomorrow night's hilarity.'

‘I had no idea that seeing your fiancée was a trap.' She pelted a spoonful of instant into each of the mugs, sloshed some boiling water in and topped it off with milk.

‘Stephanie isn't the problem.' He hooked out another chair with his foot and proceeded to stretch both legs out in front of him and watch her with his hands behind his head. ‘Her friends are the problem. The women titter and giggle and the men talk in booming voices and compare drinking anecdotes.' Despite her attempts to cover herself, her robe slipped open as she handed him his mug of coffee and he was privy to the sight of her long body encased in the least attractive item of clothing he could think of seeing on a woman. A faded and well-worn tee-shirt hanging to her knees with some barely identifiable advertising motif on the front.

She sat down opposite him and blew on the surface of her coffee. ‘How long will this car mechanic be?'

‘I told him to get here as quickly as possible. Believe me, the last thing I need now is to be sitting here at the ungodly hour of midnight, waiting for someone to come and fix my car. With work tomorrow.' He ferociously gulped a mouthful of coffee. ‘And another late night on the horizon.' He looked at her speculatively. ‘Why don't you come along?'

‘Come along where?' For one bizarre moment she thought he was inviting her to go to work with him.

‘Come along to the little dinner party I'm being dragged to? Stephanie would be thrilled and you could
meet some people.' He lowered his eyes and sipped some more coffee. ‘There'll probably be one or two eligible men there…' He let the offer fall into the silence like a stone dropping into a pond. ‘Unless, of course, you're already involved with someone…' He risked a quick look to see how this was registering. ‘Someone out there in Panama?'

‘That's none of your business.'

‘Merely trying to introduce you to a social life.'

‘I'm here to sort things out with the company,' Destiny said shortly. ‘And then I shall be heading back home. I don't
need
a social life, thank you.'

‘Everyone needs a social life. Don't tell me you don't enjoy some kind of social life out there. On that compound of yours.' He tried to imagine it and failed. ‘You're a young woman, after all.'

‘How long have you and my stepcousin been engaged?'

There was no attempt to disguise the change of topic and Callum cursed under his breath. ‘Two years.'

‘Two years! And you're not married yet?'

‘It's hardly shocking,' he said with a trace of impatience in his voice. He had never considered it a long time. In fact, even now, there were no plans for a wedding on the horizon. Neither he nor Stephanie was particularly adamant on moving the step further. ‘Marriage is a serious business. What's the point rushing into it? You know what they say about marrying in haste and repenting at leisure.'

‘Yes, but if you're certain about someone, then why hang around?' She rested her elbow on the table and cupped her chin in one hand while the other cradled her mug, idly stroking the ceramic surface as she continued to look at him.

‘Two years is hardly
hanging around.
' Silence. ‘Is it?' Further silence. ‘It's nothing to do with whether you've found the right person or not.' Was it particularly hot in the kitchen? He was perspiring and he ran one finger under the collar of his shirt. ‘Marriage is little more than a piece of paper anyway.'

‘I thought you said that it was a serious business.'

‘This is a ridiculous conversation. I was simply inviting you out to meet a few people and rescue you from the prospect of spending your nights cooped up in this place.' Alarmingly, he could detect pique in his voice. ‘Through the goodness of my heart.'

At that, she raised her eyebrows in patent disbelief and he gave her a thunderous look. ‘The goodness of your heart? You haven't
got
a heart! You want to buy my company and that's all that interests you! I'm a spoke in your wheel and you would do anything to get rid of it!'

‘That's business,' he muttered. ‘The fact is, that whether we like it or not, I'm engaged to your stepcousin, so we're going to see one another in the course of things.'

‘How can you separate business from pleasure? How can you treat someone one way when you're sitting across a desk from them and then treat them completely differently when you're sitting across a dinner table?'

‘Why can't you just accept what's handed to you and not read ulterior motives behind everything?'

‘You're the one who showed up at this house unannounced,' she pointed out, ‘so that you could try and wheedle me into selling you the company before I'd had time to see the directors or even take advice from Derek.'

‘I was not trying to wheedle you into selling anything!' Callum exploded. He stood up and began savagely pacing the kitchen.

‘Why don't you just help me get the company into
shape?' she demanded. ‘That would be a good solution. And you would still have some shares in it through Stephanie.'

At this, he gave a snort of derisory laughter. ‘What, you mean pour some of my own money into your company, money I would never get back? Why the hell would I do that?'

‘What would you do with the company if I
did
agree to sell it to you?' She could feel her own thought processes getting agitated and jerky. Her eyes compulsively followed him as he prowled, soaking up his expressive hands, the hard, good-looking face with its sensual, curving mouth.