Cathy Williams - Marriage Bargain With His Innocent

She cringed when she’d remembered the way Robbie had tried to encourage her to lose a bit of weight. Afterwards, when the dust had settled, she had discovered that he had met and married someone else in record time. Someone long and thin. Ever since then Georgina had made even more of an effort to conceal the body that had let her down.

Yes, it was silly—and, yes, it was nonsensical. But since when did feelings make sense?

She drifted into a restless sleep and had no idea how long she had been asleep when she heard a knocking on her door.

She surfaced, feeling drugged and disorientated. It didn’t occur to her to be careful when she tentatively pulled the door open because the bed and breakfast was securely locked against intruders. Which meant that the owner, a lovely woman in her fifties, could be the only person knocking.

And it wasn’t that late. Only a little after eleven. But she had been so shattered after her pointless visit to Matias that she had climbed into bed and fallen asleep almost immediately.

Her eyes started at the bottom. Loafers—expensive ones. Black jeans—low-slung. Black close-fitting jumper. Muscular body.

Georgina knew that it was Matias before her eyes collided with his silver dark gaze.

‘Let me in, Georgie.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘How did you get in? Who let you in?’ She peered angrily past him in search of the culprit. ‘Whoever let you in had no right to do so!’

‘She sensed I wasn’t going to steal the family heirlooms. Let me in.’

‘Do you know what time it is?’

‘ Not bedtime on a Saturday evening for most people under the age of forty-five. And time for me to tell you that there’s been a slight change of plan.’

Matias raked his fingers through his hair and shot her a look of brooding unease.

‘Whatever you have to say will have to wait until morning.’ Her heart beating like a sledgehammer, and feeling acutely aware of her lack of clothing, Georgina made to shut the door. In response Matias neatly wedged his foot in the open gap before he could be locked out.

‘I realise this is not the most convenient place in the world for a conversation, but what I have to say can’t wait. My mother called.’

Georgina hesitated. With a sigh, she reluctantly opened the door, then told him to sit at the dressing table so that she could at least get dressed.

She knew the sort he went for. Tall, leggy blondes who weighed next to nothing. She knew that what she had on was no more revealing than what most girls would wear to the park on a hot day. But she still had to swallow down a sickening feeling of self-consciousness as she scuttled into the bathroom clutching jeans and a tee shirt.

She’d disappeared in under ten seconds. But that was all it had taken for Matias to realise that the body she had always been at pains to keep hidden away was voluptuous, with curves in all the right places, and a derriere as round and as perfect as a peach. She wasn’t overweight. She was sexy .

His libido, which had been sadly tepid during the last few weeks of his tempestuous relationship with Ava, roared into shocking life, forcing him to conceal a prominent bulge by sitting on a stool by the window.

‘You were saying...?’ Georgina asked bluntly, when she reappeared in a more acceptable jeans and tee shirt outfit.

She made sure the overhead light was on its brightest setting, so that the room was now as brightly lit as the changing room in a department store. She perched on the edge of the bed, because there were no other available chairs, and rested her hands on her lap.

‘You should have dumped your pride and stayed at my place. It’s ridiculous what some people call a B&B in London. There’s not enough room here to swing a cat.’ It was proving impossible for him to get into a comfortable position.

‘The owner is lovely. It’s cheap. It’s clean. And I’m not being ripped off. What did your mother have to say?’

‘First of all, I was caught off-guard. It was late, and my mother seldom calls me.’

‘That’s because she doesn’t like to think that she might be disturbing you.’

‘More conversations about me, Georgie? Before I could break the disappointing news that we’d decided to call it a day, she launched into a long, excitable congratulatory speech and told me that it was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time. She said that she was under strict instructions not to call me, to wait until we both came down to Cornwall, but she knew that you’d headed to London and couldn’t contain herself. Said she felt she finally had something worth living for...’

‘Didn’t you believe me when I told you that?’

‘Hearing it from the horse’s mouth made a difference.’

He stood up, strolled to the window, peered out at an uninspiring view of the back of the building, where tall plastic bins were arranged like soldiers against the wall.

He slowly spun round to look at her, half sat on the broad window ledge. ‘You were right. She’s the happiest I’ve heard her in a long time. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.’

‘So,’ Georgina said slowly, ‘what you’re saying is that you didn’t tell her that it’s off...?’

‘How could I?’

‘That’s a bit of a problem, then, isn’t it? Considering you told me in no uncertain terms that you weren’t going to pretend anything for the sake of your mother.’

Matias flushed darkly. ‘Don’t think that I approve of the way you auditioned me for a role I hadn’t applied for,’ he reminded her abruptly. ‘But here we are. I didn’t have the heart to break the bad news down the phone so we’ll play this game—but the way I see it this will be a temporary situation. It beggars belief that my mother has fallen for your outrageously improbable scenario, but if it’s aiding her recovery then it’s something I will have to accept.’

Georgina didn’t say anything. She had thought so far and no further when it came to this charade. Now a shiver of unease rippled through her and she looked at Matias from under lowered lashes.

He was the king of urban, sophisticated cool and he was supposed to be going out with her . She, too, marvelled that his mother hadn’t fainted with disbelief at the improbable scenario.

They were supposed to be an item. Boyfriend and girlfriend. Lovers...

Her stomach lurched, because her imagination threatened to veer off in all sorts of uncharted directions.

‘So...’ Matias picked up the thread of the conversation. His voice was clipped and businesslike, ‘I’m here to briefly discuss the mechanics of this situation. What have you told my mother about us? How much winging it have you done?’

‘Can’t we discuss this another time?’ she replied vaguely.

‘Another time?’

‘Next week? On the phone, perhaps?’

‘Are you living in the real world, Georgie? My mother thinks we’re going out with one another in some happy-against-all-odds scenario and you want to discuss the details of our so-called relationship on the phone next week ? Maybe? ’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying,’ Matias imparted coolly, ‘that we’ll both be leaving for Cornwall in the morning. My mother is expecting us. When we get there, having our stories match up might be an idea.’

‘You say that you see this as a temporary situation...do you have a timeline in sight?’

Georgina regretted every second of whatever crazy impulse had plunged her into this mess. It had been a lot easier dealing with a fictional situation. Even when she had boarded that train to London she had not really thought about facing Matias in the flesh. He’d been much easier to deal with in her head. Less intimidating, less forbidding, pretty much less... everything .