The Flawed Marriage. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ start to heal his leg will respond better to treatment, but another emotional upheaval like being suddenly forced to go and live with Teri could set him back years.’

      Amber could well understand Joel’s dilemma.

      ‘I’m hoping to persuade an aunt of mine, who at present lives in Australia to make her home with us and act as a surrogate mother to Paul, someone he can come to rely on and trust. He never trusted Teri; she was too changeable, her moods too violent for him to know where he was with her. She never wanted a child; Paul’s conception was a mistake. In more ways than one,’ he added under his breath. ‘Once she knows I’ve remarried, Teri will do everything she can to try and get the court to revoke their decision in her favour, and for that reason, to the outside world at least, our marriage must be seen to be completely normal. Her husband is an extremely rich man; rich enough for Teri to be able to hire private detectives to spy on us in public. Inside this house, when we’re alone, we can live as strangers, but to the rest of the world you must be a girl I’ve fallen deeply in love with and who loves me in return. You will share my bedroom and my bed.’ He saw Amber’s expression and raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Something wrong?’

      Amber forced herself to meet his glance squarely, reminding herself how desperately she needed his money.

      ‘Our marriage will be strictly a business arrangement?’

      ‘By which I take it that you mean no sex?’ Joel countered coolly. ‘But of course. I thought I’d made that plain; even if you were Venus herself you’d be perfectly safe. Mercenary women have no appeal for me—in fact I find them a complete turn-off; and your charms…’ His eyes flicked cruelly over her too thin body and misshapen leg before returning to her paper-white face, ‘such as they are, are not sufficient to change my mind. In public we will be newly married lovers; but there’s no likelihood of me forgetting that it’s just a charade. Want to back out?’

      The words which would free her from his taunting presence hovered on her lips, but before she could utter them two pictures flashed through her mind. The first, surprisingly, was of Paul, small and vulnerable as he watched her with wary eyes; and the second was of Rob, embarrassed and uncomfortable as he left her hospital bedside for the last time. Together they were powerful enough to bridle her tongue, and taking her silence as a denial, Joel continued smoothly, ‘Very well. There’s no point in delaying unnecessarily. I’ll organise a special licence—it will make our marriage appear all the more romantic; there’s something recklessly foolhardy about a man who marries with all the haste implied by a special licence, don’t you agree?’ Without waiting for her reply he added, ‘Oh, there’s just one more small detail. Before we do marry I should like you to sign a document I’ll have drawn up acknowledging the temporary nature of our marriage and the fact that you’re being paid to serve in the capacity of my wife for a brief period. A form of insurance for me just in case you get any silly ideas.’

      ‘You flatter yourself,’ Amber gritted at him. ‘Hasn’t losing one wife to another man taught you anything about the opposite sex?’

      She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint flush of anger lying along his cheekbones and leaping to life in the granite eyes, but he had himself under control almost immediately, the anger masked by the cynical expression she was coming to recognise.

      ‘A great deal,’ he drawled, ‘but millionaires naïve enough to fall for women like you and Teri are thin on the ground, and you might just decide to settle for second best.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      ‘EVERYTHING is arranged. I’ve fixed the ceremony for Tuesday, which gives us the weekend to get organised. First on the agenda, I suspect, will be a shopping trip. You’ll need a wedding ring,’ Joel informed Amber dryly, ‘and new clothes.’ His eyes slid assessingly over the plain grey skirt and dull white blouse she had been wearing for her interview, and which were still the only clothes she possessed, after two days in his home, having vetoed her suggestion that she returned to Birmingham to collect her others. There were things she had to do, she protested—her mother to tell; her landlady.

      All tasks which which could be attended to by telephone, Joel had reminded her, letting her know that he wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to back out of their arrangement.

      They were in his study, an attractive masculine room at the back of the house furnished with comfortable leather chairs, a desk, some beautiful reproduction Georgian filing cabinets disguised as bow-fronted chests and bookcases containing a wide variety of books from novels to highly technical literature on computer technology which Amber had learned was the field in which his companies operated.

      Tomorrow would be her first test as Joel’s fiancée. Mrs Downs, whom Joel had telephoned and asked not to bother to come in the other two days, was due to arrive in the morning. Joel had assured her that she would not find it difficult to keep up the pretence in front of the other woman, but Amber wasn’t too sure.

      ‘Worrying about tomorrow?’ Joel drawled, accurately reading her mind. ‘Don’t be. Just think of yourself as an actress hired to play a part, for which you’re being paid extremely generously. After that the rest should come naturally. All women are actresses at heart.’

      His cynical observation jarred, even though she tried to pretend it left her unmoved. She glanced at her watch. Joel had arrived from Kendal half an hour before and it was now nearly seven.

      ‘It’s Paul’s bedtime,’ she reminded him. ‘I promised I’d read to him. Shall I wait until you’ve seen him?’

      ‘Why don’t we both go up together?’ Joel suggested. ‘That way we can break the happy news to him.’

      Amber knew that Joel had been observing Paul’s reaction to her—and hers to him—but much as she liked the little boy, she had no intention of encouraging him to become too fond of her. It simply wouldn’t be fair either to him or to her. In some way she almost wished he had taken a dislike to her, but she knew beyond any shadow of doubt now that if he had Joel would have instantly abandoned his plans to marry her. Think of the money, she kept reminding herself; the money which was to be the instrument of her eventual revenge against Rob. If she closed her eyes and thought hard enough she could almost conjure up the image of how it would be; of her own unannounced arrival at wherever Rob was, and his astonishment when he saw her restored to full health, walking as gracefully as she had done in the past. She would be beautifully dressed, elegantly made up; and she would have the pleasure of watching him see what he had so callously thrown away.

      As always the mental imagery helped to reinforce her determination. Paul wouldn’t be hurt, she promised herself. She wouldn’t allow that to happen. And Joel? She glanced sideways at him. Any man who could strike the type of bargain he had struck with her and demand written acknowledgement of that bargain wasn’t capable of being hurt.

      But he must have been once, a tiny inner voice reminded her, otherwise he would never have married Teri in the first place. What was she like? Amber wondered.

      ‘So that’s settled,’ Joel said suavely, cutting through her thoughts, ‘Tomorrow we go to Kendal shopping. Mrs Downs will look after Paul. We’d better make a full day of it—and an evening as well. It will be expected; after all, it isn’t every day a man gets engaged.’

      Not a woman either, Amber thought sadly, and this would be her first formal engagement. Rob had never given her a ring.

      Paul was playing with some toy soldiers when they went up to his room.

      He СКАЧАТЬ