The Prospective Wife. KIM LAWRENCE

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      He didn’t normally get a kick out of seeing people grovel, but there were exceptions…! No man, no matter how secure he was, liked being told a beautiful woman didn’t fancy him. He speculated—in a lazy, objective kind of way—how hard it would be to make her change her mind. Rejection didn’t occur to Matt.

      Kat’s cheeks grew hotter as she squirmed under his malicious scrutiny… So she’d put both feet in it. It wasn’t very charitable of him to labour the fact…and enjoy it so much!

      ‘If you automatically assume every woman you meet is out to seduce you, perhaps you need the services of a good psychologist, not a physio!’ Go on, Kat, you tell him; it’s not as if you need the job, is it?

      Matt met her defiant glare with a thoughtful expression. So, no grovelling.

      She braced herself, pretty sure he was going to say something blighting, and pretty sure she deserved it, but when those heavy lids lifted he just stared… Kat had never personally encountered a stare quite like this. She found she could readily visualise innocent men confessing to heinous crimes if forced to endure that expressionless intensity for too long! She was glad that the only thing she was guilty of was clumsiness!

      ‘It’s not personal or anything.’

      His sardonic stare underlined the stupidity of her stilted announcement.

      ‘I mean, I’m sure you’re a very nice person…underneath…’ Underneath being a dyed-in-the-wool misogynist, that was.

      Was this meant to soothe his bruised ego…? Nobody as far as Matt could recall had ever called him ‘nice’ before as if they meant it, let alone as if they didn’t mean it!

      The dangerous glitter in his eyes made Kat feel even more flustered. She decided it might be a good time to change tack.

      ‘I suppose you think it’s odd that Drusilla didn’t tell you about me… Actually,’ she conceded truthfully, ‘I do too.’

      ‘I’m sure she had her reasons.’

      Kat tried to ignore the nasty knowing note in his voice and racked her brains for a reasonable explanation to account for Drusilla Devlin’s strange behaviour in dropping her in it like this.

      ‘She was probably worried you wouldn’t want me,’ she mused half to herself.

      That had a nice self-effacing note to it. A cynical smile twisted his lips as Matt’s eyes slowly travelled the length of her curvaceous figure; this wasn’t a woman who lay awake at nights worrying about rejection.

      Kat continued her meandering explanation, oblivious to his cynical observations.

      ‘I really needed the job you see.’ It was probably way too late to remember that.

      Now there was a statement that just begged a question, and if he asked it he’d have laid money on her being able to produce a first-class sob story… Ironically, he was half inclined to believe it might even be true! If this was acting, it was Oscar-class stuff.

      ‘Simple philanthropy rarely covers my mother’s behaviour…’

      ‘It’s true,’ Kat fired back, angry on Drusilla’s behalf. ‘Your mother was being kind to me, offering me the job…not that I’m not very well qualified.’ She frowned fiercely and divided her glare that said she was willing to defend her credentials between both men. ‘You see, she went to school with my mum and she knew I was in a bit of a fix…moneywise…’ An uncomfortable flush mounted her smooth cheeks as she hastily skipped over this subject.

      ‘I can’t help but feel it might have been simpler all round if she’d just given you the money, not foisted you on me.’

      Kat’s eyes widened in indignation. ‘I don’t take charity!’

      ‘A girl with principles,’ he drawled.

      ‘You find that funny?’ she snapped from between clenched teeth.

      ‘I find it commendable,’ he replied with such patent insincerity that Kat felt like hitting him over the head with one of his crutches. She didn’t normally have such violent inclinations, but he was an extremely trying man.

      ‘I’m more than capable of working for my money…’

      ‘And is this…project paying very well?’

      This was one nasty insinuation too many, as far as Kat was concerned. ‘Let’s just say that I’d need to be getting an awful lot more if the job description included trying to get romantic with you! I don’t mean to be rude—’

      ‘You do surprise me—’

      ‘—but you did ask,’ she finished defiantly. ‘And I don’t know why you’re acting so offended. Nobody’s suggested you’re stupid and avaricious enough to agree to marry someone if you were paid enough!’

      ‘I don’t think my mother paid you.’

      He didn’t add that the prospect of being his wife would be financial inducement enough for a lot of women… Maybe not this woman…? Definitely not this woman! It had been some time since he’d met a starry-eyed idealist, which no doubt accounted for the fact it had taken him so long to recognise this one. In his opinion, idealism was a dangerously unpredictable trait.

      Her brows shot up in elaborate surprise. ‘You think I’d do it for free?’ she flung back childishly.

      For the first time she glimpsed a flicker of genuine humour in his electric blue eyes.

      ‘I think she was relying on propinquity and my natural charm to do the job,’ he responded drily. He smiled and provided her with a brief but dazzling flash of that charm. ‘You look dubious…but, you see, mothers,’ he explained gravely, ‘are notoriously blind when it comes to their off-spring.’

      ‘I didn’t mean to be—’

      Matt waved aside her protest with a faint movement of his long tapering fingers. ‘Personal…I know. For someone who is keen on professional detachment, you cram in more insults per minute than anyone else I’ve ever met.’

      ‘But…’

      ‘Calm down, that’s not bad.’

      ‘It isn’t?’

      ‘I can’t abide boot-lickers,’ he announced blandly. ‘Let’s say for one minute that you can swear hand on heart—’ his focus shifted to the region where that organ was housed, and lingered there ‘—that you’re only here to continue the torture inflicted on me by members of your profession in the clinic.’

      Kat let out a silent sigh of relief as his eyes finally lifted. She just hoped and prayed her top was thick enough to hide the tingling activity of her nipples.

      ‘That doesn’t alter the fact that if I decide I need a resident nurse or physio I’d prefer one of my own choosing…’

      Kat was still too preoccupied by the inexplicable behaviour of her body to summon up the necessary energy to fight him on this; besides, as much as she needed this job, she wasn’t about to beg.

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