Jo stared. The box wasn’t new, but it wasn’t the aged purple velvet that had her attention. The single emerald was square cut; it was breathtaking.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed.
Liam looked pleased by her reaction. ‘Mum’s grandmother gave it to her, but it goes farther back than that. It was a man’s signet ring originally, but some romantically inclined ancestor of mine had it cut down to size for his lady love. It should fit you.’ His narrowed eyes mentally assessed the slender width of her long, tapering fingers tipped by a shiny coral varnish.
Jo caught her breath and glanced up at him in alarm. ‘No!’ she said, making vague fluttery gestures of rejection with her trembling hands. ‘I can’t wear that.’
‘If it doesn’t fit I can—’
‘I’m not talking about fit.’
‘Then what. . . ?’
‘It’s too valuable.’
‘It’s insured. Mum wants you to wear it.’
‘That makes it worse,’ she wailed in agitation.
‘Nonsense!’ he said with bracing insensitivity. ‘In Mum’s world, when a girl gets engaged she wears a ring. In not immediately providing you with one I’ve committed a social solecism of world-class proportions. This is a prop, nothing more.’ He caught hold of her hand and firmly slid the heavy gold band onto her finger. ‘There, it fits like a glove.’
‘More like a manacle,’ Jo retorted as she struggled to pull the slim band off. ‘It’s stuck!’
‘As always, your enthusiasm for our engagement bowls me over.’ Beneath the arid humour in his tone there was a definite edge of anger. ‘For God’s sake, calm down, Jo.’
At his sharp words Jo did stop tugging at the ring. Keeping their brittle relationship from evolving into a slanging match was requiring a lot of self-restraint. ‘It’s so symbolic,’ she said with a small shudder.
A look of raw pain crossed Liam’s face before he said
harshly, ‘That’s the general idea: symbolic of commitment. ’
‘Symbolic of a lie.’
‘Is this a lie?’
His action was so unexpected that she froze in shock. She was unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of his long fingers curling possessively over the lower part of her abdomen. The slight filling out of the flat contours of her belly was all but invisible still when covered by her clothes. Gentle but fiercely possessive, his fingers splayed out as a rapt expression spread over his face.
‘This is amazing,’ he gasped hoarsely.
‘I know.’ She’d ached to share it with him; the poignancy of the moment threatened to overwhelm her.
‘I want to share this, Jo. Please let me?’
He couldn’t know what he was asking. Take him on his terms: marriage to give their child a real family? She could do it, but at what cost to herself? Liam didn’t love her and every day together would remind her of that. Oh, he’d be such a great dad! Could she deprive her unborn child of that opportunity? The fierce internal struggle brought beads of perspiration to her upper lip.
‘Don’t shut me out, Jo, and I don’t just mean from the baby. I want to see all the changes in your body as it ripens.’ His free hand went to the curve of her breast. Under his light touch her nipples instantly hardened and swelled. A slow smile of sensual satisfaction curved his lips. ‘Don’t go back to your place tonight; stay with me. Let me look after you.’
‘That sounds very paternal.’
‘I don’t feel paternal.’ His grin was devilish. ‘At least not towards you.’
‘Just the big brother I never had.’
He winced. ‘Did I ever say that?’
‘Frequently, in your more condescending period’ The hungry response of her body to his touch made a mockery of the last two weeks of self-denial.
His hand travelled up from the upper slope of her breasts to curve around her neck. He pulled her head closer and covered her mouth without any preliminaries. Her soft lips parted under his and at the sound of her deep moan the hungry ferocity of his mouth increased.
When he lifted his head she felt dizzy, almost as if she were floating. Liam’s expression was taut and unfamiliar; a dark flush showed along his cheek-bones.
‘Come home with me.’
‘Are you asking me to live with you?’
‘Give it a try, Jo. Call it a trial marriage’
‘Call it crazy.’ She didn’t want to talk, she didn’t want to think! She wanted his mouth on hers, his hands on her body with a desperation that precluded sane consideration.
‘That’s settled, then.’ A fierce light of satisfaction gleamed in his eyes.
‘It is?’
The he was kissing her again and she’d have agreed to just about anything to have him go on. Liam heard the door open before she did and he drew back. Her fingers were still tangled in his dark hair when she heard Aunt Maggie speak.
‘She liked the ring, then,’ Maggie observed, rubbing her hands in delight.
‘Maggie, perhaps we should take another turn around the block,’ Pat suggested as he tactfully averted his eyes from the young couple.
‘Nonsense, Jo and I have a lot more to discuss. Liam can have her any time’
And wasn’t that the truth? Jo thought bleakly.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘S
O HERE we are.’ Jo’s bright and breezy tone lacked conviction.
She’d always felt completely at ease here in Liam’s home and this abrupt transition to self-conscious edginess was hard to come to terms with. She walked over to the far wall which was almost completely glazed. She looked out blindly towards the great view of the river. The same view could be enjoyed from his roof garden, which she usually tended while he was travelling. It was a tranquil oasis in the middle of the city.
‘Here we are indeed. Sorry about the mess. I didn’t think I’d be having a visitor.’
‘Didn’t you?’
His eyebrows lifted and his smile neither confirmed nor denied her suspicions. ‘It’s the books, I never seem to have enough space to put them,’ he observed with an uncharacteristically vague expression. ‘And I never did get around to replacing my cleaning lady.’
Jo wasn’t fooled. Whilst his words and manner might be casual, she was aware that the expression in his eyes was anything but that. He was sifting and analysing every nuance in her voice, every flicker on her face. It wasn’t very comfortable being under a microscope, especially when she had a secret she didn’t intend sharing with anyone—least of all Liam!
Two could play at normality. ‘It’s a mess on a much grander scale than I’m accustomed to.’
‘The idea of moving up in the world doesn’t seem to be making you very happy, Jo.’
‘Well, I hope you don’t expect me to earn my bed and board by picking up your socks. It’s not funny,’ she added as he laughed. To her relief the laughter seemed to have taken the edge off the intensity she sensed coiled just below the surface.
‘The idea of you as a domestic slave is extremely funny,’ he contradicted firmly. ‘And actually I’m quite self-sufficient in the domestic department. I’ve just outgrown this place,’ he mused thoughtfully.
‘Outgrown? My flat is a shoebox compared to this, but then I don’t get paid megabucks.’ I don’t get paid at all at the moment, she remembered with a frown. ‘Don’t think I’m going to scrounge off you. I’m not broke.’ She was always self-sufficient; the idea of being reliant on anyone went against the grain.
‘You’ve taken a weight off my mind.’
His sarcastic tone made her flush. She turned away from the window and placed her hands on the back of a leather chair. ‘Have you a problem with that?’
‘Me?’ His blue eyes opened innocently wide. ‘Do you want a rent book?’
‘I’m trying to be serious.’
‘Then turn your mind seriously to this: we’ll need to look for somewhere more suitable before the baby comes. Whereabouts would you like to live?’
Neat, but not very subtle. Jo felt snared by his guileless blue gaze. ‘You’re very generous with the we all of a sudden,’ she responded spikily.
‘Do I detect a certain ambivalence towards this trial marriage?’ Despite the lightness in his tone she could sense the irritation beyond the irony.
‘I don’t know how you talked me into this,’ she muttered
mutinously. I must be totally crazy, she decided, wondering why on earth she’d fallen in with his scheme. Live with him—what a recipe for disaster!
‘I didn’t talk you into it, I
kissed
you into it’
Jo’s slight frame swelled with indignation as she glared wrathfully at him. ‘My God, but you’re so conceited, Liam!’ It was humiliating to know how painfully correct his words were. It was also scary that he recognised her weakness.
‘I’m only trying to be accurate.’
She snorted derisively at the innocent expression in his blue eyes and the corner of his mouth lifted into a disturbingly attractive grin.
‘You became infinitely more pliable.’ To her dismay he didn’t let the awkward subject drop. ‘In fact the change was astounding,’ he continued, his voice soft and silkily suggestive.
Jo averted her face to hide the pink glow that stained her cheeks. She pushed aside a pile of papers and sat down in the deeply upholstered leather swivel chair. ‘The kissing wasn’t personal.’
Liam, elbows on the work counter that separated the kitchen from the living area, rested his chin in his palm and raised an enquiring brow. ‘Do tell, I’m fascinated.’
‘Fascinated!’ she spat in disgust. ‘Your trouble is too many women have told you you’re
fascinating
and you believe them!’ she observed with a sniff. ‘The explanation is perfectly simple. I’m being engulfed by hormones and. . . and. . . ’ Pragmatic without being revealing wasn’t that easy a balance to achieve. Her aching throat closed over completely.
‘You’re a raging torrent of primeval want and need—’
She prayed he didn’t know just how shockingly perceptive his flippant words were.
‘It’s easy for you to joke,’ she began hotly. Liam had to be the most callous, insensitive male in creation This was a painfully embarrassing subject and he was playing it for laughs Probably she ought to act as if the subject were some huge joke too, but she didn’t think she could have raised even a feeble grin.
‘Who said I was joking?’
Moments before she’d wanted him to show a bit of respect for the gravity of the situation, but now she couldn’t detect even the faintest glimmer of a smile in his eyes she wasn’t so sure.
‘Perhaps joke wasn’t quite the right word,’ she corrected a little breathlessly. What girl wouldn’t be breathless under the impact of Liam’s steady, unflinching gaze?
‘What is the right word, Jo?’
Jo shook her head to break the mesmeric effect of his blue eyes. ‘I only agreed to this to convince Aunt Maggie nothing’s fishy.’
‘I thought, hormones aside, you didn’t know why you agreed.’
‘That was a figure of speech.’ Trust Liam to be pedantic.
‘Mum
has had no trouble accepting the fact we’re getting married.’
‘I don’t have a problem with the idea, because we’re
not
getting married.’
He dismissed her protest with an indulgent smile that made her teeth grind. ‘In her world,’ he continued, ‘it’s what two people do when they’ve made a baby.’
In Liam’s world too, it seemed.
‘Before
they’ve made the baby is the more conventional process.’
‘Is that what Justin had in mind?’ As always the thought of Jo’s ex-lover soured his mood. He mentally included the ex with some satisfaction.
This unexpected inclusion of Justin in the conversation
made Jo blink. Her expression grew belligerent as she watched Liam’s lip curl with distaste. ‘None of your damn business,’ she said stonily.
‘He being such a
conventional
sort of guy.’
‘And wanting to marry me isn’t conventional?’
‘No,’ he flung back, ‘it’s an uphill battle!’
Jo regarded his expression of frustrated irritation with sympathy. Guilt combined with some outmoded sense of honour were the only things that had inspired Liam to consider matrimony. ‘Some men aren’t meant to marry.’
‘And you think I’m one of that number?’ he asked. Why should he resent her comment? Jo continued to puzzle over the curious expression on his face as he came to sit companionably on the arm of her chair. At least, it might have felt companionable once—now the proximity made her pulse behave in an irregular fashion and her throat grow painfully dry.
‘Could be. If you do ever marry I think it will be to someone more decorative and amenable than me.’
‘That doesn’t restrict the field too much,’ he murmured drily as she inclined her head to look up at him.
‘I’d never suggest you’re too selfish and feckless to marry.’ No girl liked to be told she wasn’t decorative. Just because she had weakly fallen in with his plans it was no reason to let him get too smug.
‘Perish the thought.’
‘This is a purely business arrangement.’
‘No kissing?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she agreed without a flicker to show how much havoc the sly question had wrought. It was about time she started showing a bit of self-restraint. She could only blame her hormones just so much! It definitely
wasn’t
the right time to dwell on how good Liam’s kissing technique was.
‘There’s something very challenging about rules.’
Jo gave a faint grimace. It was a bit late to remember that as a boy Liam never had been able to resist walking on the forbidden stretch of grass. Even now he had a confrontational attitude to authority if he thought it misplaced.
He moved his hand to the back of her chair and several strands of her hair snagged in the heavy metal strap of his wrist-watch.
Jo cried out sharply as her head was yanked backwards.
Liam instinctively dropped to his knees beside her. ‘Keep still!’ he ordered tersely, bending forward. His fingers brushed her cheek as he carefully released her. ‘Better?’ he asked as the pressure on her scalp desisted.
‘Uh-huh,’ she murmured, running her fingers through her unruly curls. To her dismay Liam didn’t straighten up and move away. His body stayed curved over her, one hand steadying himself on the back of the chair, the other a whisper away from her face. The flickering sensation in the pit of her belly became a warm thrumming as the scent of his body made her nostrils flare.
The side of his nose rubbed gently down the side of hers and the barely visible fresh crop of stubble on his jaw grazed against her cheek. His breath came warm against her skin. The intimacy was devastating.
‘This isn’t actually kissing, is it?’ he asked softly.
‘Not strictly speaking,’ she agreed hoarsely. His eyes were half closed as his fingers moved whisper-like over the firm, rounded contour of her jaw. She suddenly fiercely wanted to press her lips against the lazy droop of his eyelids. Her own fingers still pressed to the side of her head collided with his and, even whilst the tiny gasp was emerging from her lips, his fingers were interlocking firmly with her own.
‘This isn’t fair!’ she groaned as he pulled her hand against his own face.
‘What’s not fair?’
‘I know what you’re doing,’ she told him hoarsely.
‘I always said you weren’t as stupid as you look,’ he said throatily.
‘You think if you get me into bed I’ll agree to anything you say.’ Jo banged her head against a mental brick wall as these incautious words escaped. She could only hope and pray Liam didn’t appreciate the revealing nature of her remark. Trouble was, Liam was too sharp by half to miss much.
‘I’m not going to marry you, Liam, and one day you’ll thank me for it. Don’t do that!’ she groaned, closing her eyes tightly. The melting was like a chain reaction she had no control over; it started in the pit of her belly and spread—
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t like having my ear slobbered over,’ she lied wildly. There was nothing even faintly slobber-like about the delicate, agonising things he was doing to her. The fine, downy hairs on her body stood erect as the tingle surged all the way down to her toes.
She opened her eyes to see if this slur had had the desired effect. It swiftly became apparent that his ego had emerged unscathed from this insult. His confident smile was deeply disturbing. As her eyes slid from his face his forefinger on the tip of her chin gently forced her head farther upwards.
‘Why are you scared of enjoying yourself?’
‘I. . . I’m not,’ she stammered.
‘Not enjoying yourself, or not scared?’ The warmth in his face almost made it hard to remember why she mustn’t let her guard drop.
‘Both. . . neither.’
‘Marry me, Jo,’ he said, his voice deep with sudden urgency. His fingers moved to cup her face. ‘I know it’s not what either of us planned, but it makes sense. We could have fun.’
‘Fun?’ she echoed. She didn’t want sense, she wanted glorious, irrational love! She ought to be glad he couldn’t see this but his ignorance of her true feelings made her angry and resentful.
‘Sure, why not? Haven’t we always? You’re the only female I know I could contemplate living with and staying sane.’
‘Then it’s just coincidence you’re only proposing now when I’m pregnant. It was your plan all along.’ Her lips twisted in a bitter, ironic little smile as she tried to shake her head, but Liam’s grip held her immobile. He wouldn’t let her look away. It was as if he felt he could convince her of the truth of his claims by the sheer intensity of his conviction.
‘You didn’t plan to get pregnant, I didn’t plan to get married.’ His wide shoulders lifted fractionally. ‘So what? You are and I can.’
He could, but that didn’t mean he wanted to—not deep down. ‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘It is, Jo.’ His eyes drilled into her.
‘We’d be getting married for all the wrong reasons.’ She could tell from the brief flare of satisfaction in his eyes—and was there some relief there too?—that Liam sensed her struggles were weakening.
‘The divorce courts are filled with people who got married for the
right
reasons. We’ve got a lot going for us.’