Cathy Williams - A Scandalous Engagement

‘Absolutely not. None at all. I rarely raise my voice, in fact. I’m a very calm person.’ He continued to look at her with amused disbelief and she could feel a lot of that so-called calm ebbing out of her.

‘Maybe it’s just me, then,’ he told her piously, and she glared at him from under dark eyebrows.

‘Yes, it is just you, actually!’ she snapped. ‘What do you expect? You show up here out of the blue and proceed to subject me to a tirade of unfounded accusations!’ She could hear her voice spiralling higher and she took a deep, steadying breath.

The man was insufferable.

And why was he just standing there with that stupid grin on his face, as though he was the cat that had managed to corner the bowl of cream?

‘You don’t know how relieved I am to hear you say that.’

‘What? What are you talking about now?’ She was finding it difficult to keep up with his rapid shifts in mood. It was like being on a rollercoaster. No wonder he was such a big name in business. He probably addled his competitors to death!

‘Well, I might have to readjust my ideas if I thought that you were acting out of character simply because of my personality…’

‘I have no idea what you’re on about.’ She began walking out of the door, aware of him a few paces behind her.

‘I mean,’ he said to her back, ‘if I addled you, then I might jump to the conclusion that it was because I turned you on. Sexual electricity manifests itself in myriad ways, you know.’

That had her spinning back on her heels to confront him, her body arched forward belligerently.

‘You? Turn me on? Ha! In case no one’s ever mentioned it before, you are the most infuriating human on the face of this planet! Not to mention the most egotistical!’

‘So I can look forward to a calm little stay here, then, with no jealous sibling rivalry?’

She was still fuming over his arrogance and it took her a few seconds to absorb what he had said. When she did, her eyes opened wider in horrified disbelief.

‘Calm little stay here?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘What do you mean by little stay?’

‘Well, Miss Summers, you can’t expect me to rush back to New York when I have to step into my brother’s shoes now that he’s left his job to become an artist, can you?’ He shrugged and gave her a long-suffering look which did not meld well with the aggressive lines of his face. Humility, she thought sourly, was an emotion he only occasionally flirted with. If that. ‘Unless I can persuade him to knock all these stupid daydreams of becoming another Matisse on the head…’ He paused to allow his words to sink in, in all their sickening detail. ‘And, however much I want to give you the benefit of the doubt, I know you’ll appreciate that I might want to linger on here, keep an eye on the situation until I’m fully satisfied that you are what you say you are.’ The blue eyes were rueful, but underneath the phoney expression of regret she could see the hardness all too clearly.

‘So you’ll be hanging around,’ she said dully.

‘That’s right! Might be just for a few days…might be a few weeks…who knows? Might even be for longer…I’m a man who likes to go with the flow, so to speak.’ He eyed the staircase, then her. ‘Hence my desire to become reacquainted with my house. See where I’m going to sleep.’ He flashed her a broad, dazzling smile. ‘Have fun drawing!’

He headed up the stairs, his long legs covering ground rapidly until he was out of sight, while Jade remained where she was, dumbstruck, and wondering how the day had ended on such an awful note.

When the doorbell rang, she answered it with the resignation of someone expecting the worst.

‘Morning, love.’ The man was short, ruddy complexioned and dressed in overalls with an off-colour bomber jacket. He consulted the piece of paper in his hand. ‘Got the right ’ouse, ’ave I? I’m the plumber, ’ere about a leak.’

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