Kate Hewitt - The Chatsfield - Series 2

‘Something like that. My mother was my main carer, not a nanny.’

Keelin rolled her eyes. ‘Lucky you. I had a veritable parade of nannies.’ She made a faint grimace. ‘I wasn’t the easiest child apparently, but I’m sure it’s not hereditary.’

Gianni seemed prepared to let that little nugget go and frowned. ‘Where was your mother?’

Keelin pushed down the old bitterness and said airily as if it hadn’t mattered a jot, ‘Oh, you know, with Daddy on trips, or away on holidays, or shopping. I was in boarding school most of the time.’

She looked at him after eating more of her starter and washing it down with champagne. ‘You should probably hear it from me that I was expelled from four schools, including my last one, a finishing school in Switzerland.’

Gianni hadn’t touched his starter and when the staff returned he let them take it. His eyes were hooded, dangerous. ‘Hear it from you?’

Keelin shrugged. ‘In case the papers pick up on it when they find out we’re getting married.’

Gianni went rigid. He hadn’t thought about that. ‘You were expelled from all your schools?’

Keelin pouted. ‘Well, not all . Not my primary one. Just the later ones, you know how teenage rebellion is.’

She continued chummily, ‘But I can see how good that discipline was for me so I’d be a big advocate of boarding school—the earlier, the better. There are lots of great schools in Ireland.’

* * *

Gianni fought down the urge to stand up and pace up and down. Keelin was not painting a good picture, and dammit, he hated feeling as if he was being made a fool of. Her father hadn’t hinted at any of this. She was practically a delinquent! And yet she’d be only too happy to send any children they had down the same route! He’d always thought of boarding schools as upper-class nonsense.

Once again he forced himself to remain civil. ‘May I ask what your transgressions were?’

Keelin ticked off her fingers. ‘Being caught in a local bar, smoking, being caught with boys in the dorm, running away...’

Gianni felt disgust rise, not because they were serious crimes since they weren’t especially, but he hated that evidence of someone from a life of privilege taking it so much for granted, exuding a kind of supercilious confidence that said she could do whatever she liked and get away with it.

And clearly she had the idea that her life would be going in the same direction as her mother’s—that of leaving the care of her children to strangers or to a school. And they wouldn’t even be their own children if she had her way! This conversation was also making a completely hitherto unexplored sense of protectiveness at the thought of a child of his own rise up within him.

It was too much. Gianni was feeling seriously claustrophobic. But then the main course arrived and he absently picked a suitable wine to go with the meat. Only to see Keelin wrinkle up her nose and say, ‘I’ll stick to the champagne, if that’s okay. I can’t abide wine.’

Gianni took a deep calming breath and tried not to dwell on that image of Keelin at important functions insisting on champagne when everyone else was drinking wine. He made a gesture to the chef’s waiter and said urbanely, ‘Of course, have what you like.’

Blissfully, for a moment as they ate, there was silence. And once Keelin wasn’t talking and saying anything that was guaranteed to wind him up, he became uncomfortably aware of her.

In spite of the bling jewellery, big hair, lots of make-up and fake tan, she was clearly a beauty. Those eyes, especially when she widened them, threatened to distract him every time. And those lush lips. And the curves underneath the provocative silk of the jumpsuit, not to mention the flash of long shapely legs every time she moved. One thing was very clear—his body would marry this woman in a second, his head though was another matter.

When their plates had been cleared, Gianni’s eyes narrowed on Keelin. For a moment she wasn’t looking at him, or looking vacant, or chattering nonsensically, and he had the strangest notion that this was all some kind of elaborate—what? Was she deliberately sending him crazy? Making him doubt himself? Maybe he was being too hasty? Surely they could talk about these things, and if they had children, then perhaps she could be persuaded that a nanny was sufficient, and not necessarily a boarding school in the remote reaches of Ireland?

But just then she looked at him again, and a small frown marred her smooth forehead. ‘There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.’

Gianni tried not to let his eyes drop to the voluptuous swell of her breasts. ‘Yes?’

Keelin looked exceedingly uncomfortable; a faint blush stained her cheeks. ‘I wanted to talk to you about sex.’

Gianni blanched a little. Had he been so obvious?

‘You see,’ she said hesitantly, ‘the thing is that it’s not for me.’

Gianni reacted on a deeply primal level. The strength of the rejection he felt at that statement was surprising. ‘Not for you?’

Keelin shook her head and looked pained. ‘No. It’s just—I hate it, to be honest.’

She shuddered delicately. ‘All that fuss over nothing. All that sweatiness and bodily fluids. Ugh.’

She must have seen something on his face because she said with a kind of dawning comprehension, ‘You didn’t expect me to be innocent, did you? Because I’ve been with, like, tons of guys. Which is how I know I hate it.’

She just wouldn’t want to be with him? The thought was like a red flag to a highly sexed male like Gianni. His jaw clenched. ‘Of course I didn’t expect you to be innocent.’

She continued in a conversational tone, ‘I’ve thought about this a lot and while I’m not willing to have sex, I don’t mind if you want to, you know, keep a mistress. You see,’ she said hurriedly, ‘that’s really why I’d prefer to adopt.’

She sighed a big sigh of relief and smiled, as if she hadn’t just landed a bomb between them. ‘I’m glad I got that out there. I was worried.’

Then she put her hand on his and said, ‘You’re a good listener, Gianni. I’m so lucky to be marrying you.’

Her smile almost dazzled him. He was beginning to feel slightly ill. And then that anger surged again to think of her father giving him an impression of a mature, intelligent woman. He took his hand out from under hers, not liking how those cool fingers had felt on his skin.

He put down his napkin, finally tipping over the edge of his patience. ‘I have no intention of taking a mistress during our marriage and I refuse to partake in the dubious exploitation of children and babies from third-world countries.’

He leant forward and tried to ignore those widening luminous green eyes. ‘And as for sex? Maybe you don’t like it because you haven’t been doing it right?’

He had a sudden urge to take Keelin’s face between his hands and stop that mouth from saying any more in the most effective way possible. His blood was pumping and he was afraid he might say something he’d regret, so he stood up abruptly. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment?’

Gianni barely waited for an answer; he strode out of the room, cursing the day Liam O’Connor had added the condition of a marriage of convenience to their contract.

He found himself pacing in his study, no less calm now that a few walls separated him and Keelin O’Connor. He could almost see her vacuous look of surprise.

Merda!

The woman was insufferable. The prospect of marrying her was unconscionable. She didn’t want children? And any children they did have or adopt she wanted to put in some stuffy boarding school? And she didn’t like sex? Well, right now, he had no desire to prove her wrong no matter how rogue his physical reactions to her were. He cursed again.