His Christmas Acquisition (14 page)

‘Would … would it be okay if I came along with you? I’ve grown very fond of your mother in the short time I’ve known her. I’d like to see how she’s doing for myself.’

Ryan began heading for the door. There was no point dwelling on the unsavoury possibility that he had been used as a substitute for someone else, that he had been the wrong boss, in the wrong place at the wrong time. He resisted the unnatural urge to worry the remark to death until he succeeded in extracting some alternative, more favourable explanation for the way she had responded to him. Instead, he locked the door on those unsettling thoughts and half-turned to find her right behind him.

Switching off the light, the room was suddenly plunged into semi-darkness but he could still make out the anxious glitter in her eyes. Whatever murky water happened to be flowing underneath their respective bridges at the moment, there was no doubt that she cared about his mother.

‘There’s no point, really. I’ll tell her that you wanted to visit, but she’ll be back here within a day or so and you can tell her for yourself. Your time would be better spent here, seeing to all the rearrangements that will have to be put in motion for the meetings in Florida. You’ll need to make sure that all the relevant information gets emailed to George
Law. He would be a better bet to cover for me than Evans, I think. He might even find all those graphs and flip charts you prepared a handy tool.’

Jamie felt tears prick the corners of her eyes. She had to look away quickly and was grateful for the relative darkness. This was the Ryan she found so sweetly irresistible—the teasing, laid-back Ryan—and when that side of him went into retreat it was as if a dark cloud had settled over her world.

‘You were never going to use any of them, were you?’ she queried lightly, knowing that they were both attempting to find some of the familiar ground they had lost.

‘I would have taken them all with me. As for using them, well, my speeches tend to be of the “winging it” variety, although that chart with all the different colours was very appealing.’

‘I’ll make sure that everything is sorted out,’ Jamie promised, stepping into the hall and closing the door behind her.

‘I’m sure you will. I have every faith in you.’

There was no need to dwell any longer on the dos and dont’s of the strange game upon which she had agreed to embark.

As it turned out, she had less time to worry over it because Vivian was released the following day.

Jamie, having put through the final call to one of the senior conference organisers in Florida, was leaving the office at a little after five in the afternoon when she heard the sound of Ryan’s car drawing up on the drive outside.

He had been out of the house since eight-thirty, calling only to tell her that he intended to stay in the town and use his time meeting with one of the head honchos of the tourist board so that he could throw around a few ideas he had had about the possibility of opening a boutique hotel on the island. Jamie knew that he had been playing around with
the notion of extending the boundaries of his empire over the past few months, and she wasn’t surprised that he would choose the island which he knew intimately.

She had no idea how the rest of the evening would evolve, and her stomach clenched into nervous knots as she headed towards the front door. But when it was pushed open she saw Vivian, pale but looking much healthier than before, preceding her son into the airy, flagstone open area.

‘Darling girl, I’m so pleased to see you.’

Jamie walked into a warm embrace and managed to catch Ryan’s eye over his mother’s shoulder.

‘How are you feeling, Vivian?’

‘Like an old woman.’ She dismissed it with a smile, linking her arm through Jamie’s and walking towards the sitting room, which was one of the coolest rooms in the house thanks to the expanse of French doors which could be flung open to admit the balmy breezes, and the overhead ceiling fan. ‘I thought that I was as healthy as a horse,’ she confided, settling herself on the striped sofa where she suddenly looked much more frail. ‘But don’t we all, until something comes along to remind us that we aren’t? Thankfully, my stroke was very, very mild. A warning, the doctor told me. I need to start slowing down.’ She closed her eyes briefly and then opened them to smile at her son who had taken up position behind Jamie.

His hand was curved lightly on the nape of her neck and she was acutely conscious of the gentle stroking of his thumb on her skin. So this was what the charade felt like—a casual intimacy which his mother would expect of two people who were an item, and which was devastating on her senses.

Vivian was a smaller, softer, rounder version of her son. The same dark hair, the same dark eyes. These dark eyes were now happily taking them both in.

‘My darling,’ she said warmly. ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled I was when Ryan explained the situation.’

Jamie edged away from those disturbing fingers to sit on one of the upright chairs, leaving Ryan to sink onto the sofa next to his mother, conveniently no longer within touching distance. She tentatively touched the back of her neck where it still tingled, and pinned an engaging smile on her face.

‘He’s been a naughty boy. There was no need for the cloak-and-dagger routine. Of course, we all know how firm he’s always been about keeping his love life—’

‘Mother! I’m right here!’

Vivian patted his knee fondly but her eyes remained on Jamie. ‘I know, and that’s why I refrained from saying your
sex
life.’

Ryan groaned and flushed darkly. It was a pinprick of the comic in an awkward situation, if only Vivian knew.

‘Away from the office, but I couldn’t be more delighted. He must have told you that I’ve been worrying for some time now that he needs to find himself a good woman and settle down.’

‘It’s been mentioned,’ Jamie murmured when she realised that an answer was expected of her, and Vivian greeted that acknowledgement with a beam of satisfied approval.

‘Knowing that he has has made all the difference. I’m certain I’m back on my feet so quickly simply because I’m just so happy!’

Over the course of the next hour and a half, Vivian swatted aside enquiries about her nutrition regime, exercise plan and plans for when she returned to England in favour of the more absorbing topic of her son’s good fortune in finding Jamie. She asked questions which brought a rush of embarrassed colour and tongue-tied silence to Jamie but which Ryan, Oscar-winning actor that he seemed to be, answered with aplomb.

She wondered aloud at her amazing ability to read a situation, exclaiming that she had just guessed from the
very start
that something was up by the way her son looked at Jamie. She blushed delicately when she referred to that moment when her suspicions had been confirmed, having accidentally spied them kissing at the side of the pool. She hastened to add that she had not lingered and so had witnessed nothing beyond ‘a passionate kiss that said it all’, while Jamie wished for the ground to open and swallow her up, hopefully to disgorge her into a world where the events of the past few weeks had never happened.

Vivian retired to bed with a light supper of tea and toast, leaving Jamie to glumly contemplate the mess into which they had both managed to get themselves.

‘This,’ she announced, as soon as Ryan was back in the sitting room, ‘is a nightmare.’

‘We’ll discuss this outside. I no longer trust my mother not to pop up in unexpected places, and she doesn’t need to have her high hopes dashed by a few careless words from you.’

He turned on his heel and she dashed behind him out onto the veranda, and then away completely from the house as they manoeuvred down the hill via a series of twisting wooden steps until they emerged onto the white, sandy beach below.

It was dark, but out here, under a full moon, the sea glinted and glittered like a placid lake of slick, black oil.

It was only the third time Jamie had actually been on the beach, and the first time at night, and she marvelled at its spectacular isolation. The house was very cleverly situated atop a natural, protected cove which could only be accessed by boat or via the grounds of the house, which were private property. Thus, it was perfectly peaceful. Bits of driftwood were scattered here and there, and the husks of fallen coconuts
had been a never-ending source of fun and play for the little ones when they had been at the house. Ryan stooped to pick one up now and absently threw it out to sea in a long, wide arc before moving to sit on the sand, out of the reach of the sea gently lapping on the shore.

‘I had no idea your mother was so …’

‘Taken with the idea of you and I?’

‘I was going to say desperate to see you settled down.’

‘Are you saying that only a desperate man would choose you to settle down with?’ He lay back on the sand with his hands folded behind his head and Jamie flounced down next to him, although sitting up so that she could glare at his face.

‘That’s not what I’m saying,’ she denied in frustration. ‘What on earth are we going to do?’

‘We’ve already been over this.’

‘I hadn’t thought it through. I hadn’t realised that we would have to build a great detailed story of how we … we …’

‘Fell into each other’s arms? Were drawn to one another over the coffee machine and the filing cabinets?’

‘How can you think that it’s funny? Your mother really believes that we’re on the verge of announcing our engagement!’

‘Now you’re beginning to realise the position I was in when I found myself having to humour her. In her fragile condition, the last thing I could have done would have been to announce that we were involved in a little light-hearted hanky panky. I’m afraid she sees you as someone far too decent and moral and responsible to get carried away by lust, which would have left her thinking that I had seduced you for a bit of passing fun, only to toss you aside the second I was through with you.’

‘You mean the way you usually treat the women you’ve been out with?’

‘I refuse to be baited into an argument. This is the reality
we’re dealing with. I explained the situation to you and you signed up to the deal.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t sign up to any physical contact. You know that.’

He continued staring up, and to get his attention before her frustration ran away with her Jamie gathered some sand in her fist and slapped it down on his chest.

Quick as a flash, and before she could even think of taking avoidance tactics, his hand was curled round her wrist and he half sat up, propping himself up by his elbow.

‘We’re lovers, remember? My mother might be old but she’s not away with the fairies. Keeping a healthy distance and smiling politely is going to set the alarm bells going in her head.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘But
what
? I touched you for three seconds on the nape of your neck. I wasn’t plunging my hands down your tee-shirt!’

Jamie squirmed. His fingers were like a steel vice around her wrist, burning a hole in her skin.

‘Why don’t you pretend that I’m the vet?’ he gritted savagely. ‘Then you might start enjoying the occasional passing touch.’

She squeezed her eyes shut. She should never have implied that she had used him, should never have implied that she had been fired up by thoughts of Greg when Ryan had been touching her in the pool. That had been an outright lie, and afterwards she had felt like a coward who was happy to shunt the blame for her behaviour onto someone else because it was easier than having to accept responsibility for her own actions—misguided, stupid or otherwise.

She would not have liked it if a man had touched her intimately and she had responded to his touch, only to be told
that she had been nothing but a fill-in for the woman he really wanted but couldn’t have.

‘That wouldn’t work,’ she confessed in a tight voice. ‘Now, please let me go.’

Ryan released her immediately. He didn’t know what the hell had prompted him to drag the vet into the conversation. He had determined to put that unpleasant conversation of earlier behind him and move on. Evidently, it had continued to prey on his mind.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He sat up and watched her narrowly as she massaged her wrist.

‘I shouldn’t have said what I said about … Sorry, I shouldn’t have implied that you were a substitute for Greg. I’ve discovered that I put Greg behind me a lot longer ago than I thought.’

‘Go on.’

‘To what? There’s nothing else to say. If I gave the wrong impression to you, then I apologise.’

‘Let me get this straight.’ Ryan only became aware of his black mood now that it was in the process of vanishing. ‘You don’t get turned on at the thought of the vet?’

‘It would seem not.’

‘So by the pool, that hot response really
was
all for me?’

‘That still doesn’t mean that it was right! What we did …’

‘And you don’t want any physical contact because I turn you on and you don’t like that.’

‘Something along those lines,’ Jamie muttered, hot all over and agonisingly conscious of his glittering dark eyes fixed like laser beams on her face. ‘I should tell you what I managed to sort out on the work front. I haven’t had a chance, what with everything this evening.’

But, while her head was telling her that that was the best route away from this uncomfortable topic, her addled brain was refusing to go along for the ride.

Ryan tilted his head obligingly to one side. God, he suddenly felt on top of the world. He must have an ego as tough as an egg shell, he thought wryly, if a few insinuations and ill-chosen words from a woman who wasn’t even his lover could reduce him to an ill-tempered bore. And if a retraction could reverse the effect in a heartbeat.

‘You spoke to Law?’ he prompted.

‘And emailed all the info over. And … um …’ Jamie licked her lips. ‘I also contacted all the relevant people in, um, Florida.’

‘And? Um? Ah, um …’

‘You’re making fun of me!’

‘I’m intrigued by your sudden attack of nerves.’

‘Can you blame me?’

Ryan didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. ‘No. No, I can’t. You owned up to something you found difficult and I admire you for that. It was a brave thing to do. I’ll keep all physical contact to the minimum, of course. If that’s what you want.’