Elizabeth Duke - The Marriage Pact

‘You’re here in romantic Venice with no time at all to yourself? That’s criminal!’ Obviously he’d failed to read what her eyes were telling him. This man, she thought, has an ego to match his audacity!

‘I’m here to work. To mind children. It’s not a holiday,’ she snapped. ‘It’s not a holiday for my employers either. They’re here for a medical conference.’ She tossed her head, her short bob of silky brown hair swirling round her cheeks. ‘Even so, I’ve managed to see quite a bit of Venice already...’

‘Oh, yes?’ The roguish brown eyes mocked her. ‘What have you seen?’

‘More than you, most likely!’ she retorted. ‘This morning we took a look inside St Mark’s Basilica... we were among the first ones in the queue. We’ve been into the Doge’s Palace. We’ve been up the Grand Canal—more than once. We’ve shopped for souvenirs. We’ve watched the passing cruise ships from our hotel rooftop—where you get a breathtaking view of the Venice skyline at dusk. Last night we saw a magnificent sunset...’ That, she realised immediately, was a mistake.

‘How romantic,’ was his ironic comment. ‘Watching a Venetian sunset with a three-year-old. You should be watching romantic sunsets with a man, not with a child.’

‘Maybe I find young children better company than men,’ she bit back, thinking of Nigel. There had been a stunning sunset the night she’d caught him on the balcony of his flat with another woman.

‘You don’t like men? Or... just one man in particular?’ He seemed to find the idea diverting. ‘Bad experience?’ he probed delicately.

The droll note in his voice infuriated her for some reason. He sounded so smug. As if he’d never been on the receiving end of a woman’s scorn in his entire life! Well, here’s one woman who does hold you in contempt! And all good-looking Englishmen.

She was thinking not just of Nigel now, but of her handsome, silver-tongued brother-in-law back in Australia... Ralph Bannister, another Englishman, who’d burst into her sister’s life like a blazing comet and swept poor dazzled Sally off her feet... and who was now making her younger sister’s life pure hell.

She and Sally could sure pick their men!

‘Oh, I like men,’ she said levelly, looking him straight in the eye as she paused outside the ice-cream parlour. ‘It’s just smooth, good-looking Englishmen I don’t much care for. I’ve found them to be insufferably conceited and untrustworthy.’

Just as she was about to swing on her heel and stomp into the gelateria, she found her gaze caught for a fatal second, locked with his.

‘You have the most bewitching eyes,’ he murmured, the wicked glint in his own threatening to bewitch her in that paralysing second. ‘Smoky grey, fringed with black...’ The compelling eyes turned lethal. ‘Bedroom eyes.’

She jerked back to earth. Bedroom eyes! ‘That’s one place you’ll never see,’ she spat back. ‘My bedroom!’

‘How about...mine?’ He gave a wolfish smile.

She caught her breath in a hiss, her eyes shooting silver daggers at him. ‘In your dreams!’

The well-shaped lips twitched appreciatively. ‘Mmm...a woman who can stand up for herself... I like that.’

‘I want an ice cream!’ squawked Holly.

‘Yes, pet...it’s right here.’ With a final glare at the laughing-eyed Englishman, Claire turned her back on him and marched into the gelateria, bundling Holly in ahead of her. The baby, amazingly, was still fast asleep on her back.

Breathing heavily, her heart thudding against her ribs, she fought to compose herself. Oh, boy. She felt her cheeks glowing in swift shame. Outrageous as he’d been, she’d been appallingly rude to him first, calling him conceited and untrustworthy. It was completely unlike her.

The man had touched a raw spot. He was so like Nigel. A charming, good-looking, self-satisfied womaniser. But that didn’t excuse her rudeness. She ought to run after him and apologise.

He can take it, a more realistic voice asserted. It would take more than a few sharp remarks to prick that man’s armour of arrogance and conceit. No, he deserved it. She hadn’t invited him to approach her. He’d chatted her up.

Bedroom eyes, indeed! Men like him needed deflating.

She was stunned when she stepped out of the shop a few moments later and found him still there, lounging outside an exclusive menswear shop. Before she could swing away in the opposite direction he was at her side.

‘You must let me try to redeem the poor reputation we Englishmen seem to have in your eyes,’ he said with a smile that went a good way towards doing just that. Until she hardened her heart.

‘All Englishmen are not the dishonourable, womanising bounders you seem to think us,’ he assured her, ‘despite the way we sometimes carry on.’

His expression was penitent, though she noticed there was still an impish glimmer in his eye. The man was incorrigible!

‘Let me prove it to you.’ His tone was cajoling. ‘Let me buy you a drink tonight after the children are asleep. At the hotel, if you feel you can’t leave the premises...or don’t wish to. In the public bar,’ he added hastily, as if to show that he wasn’t still thinking of bedrooms.

As her lips parted, ready with an excuse—or, if that failed, a tart refusal—he touched her arm. ‘Please... Tonight is my last night here in Venice.’

She jumped in instinctive reaction at his touch, light as it was, the fine hairs on her bare skin bristling like a cat in fright. She’d never been so aware of a man’s touch in her life.

Repulsion, she was quick to label it. Indignation. Distaste. Anything but pleasure.

‘I don’t think so,’ she breathed. Remember Nigel, she thought wildly. Remember how charming and persuasive he was...in the beginning. She heard the baby on her back give a whimper. ‘I have to get back!’ she gasped out. ‘I have to feed the baby. G-goodbye!’

‘I’m heading back to the hotel myself,’ he said easily, obviously not getting the message—or not believing she meant it. He steered her through the crowd with his hand at her elbow, making her acutely—in—furiatingly—aware all over again of the effect of his hand on her bare skin.

‘I have to change and pick up my briefcase,’ he told her. ‘I’m meeting some of the other delegates at the Cipriani for lunch before I give my afternoon lecture.’

Which would be the last she would ever see of him, she thought with what should have been immense satisfaction. And relief. And could have kicked herself in disgust when a tiny quiver ran through her instead.

‘Please don’t let me hold you up,’ she said fractiously. ‘Holly can’t walk very fast.’

‘I’m in no great hurry.’ He altered his stride to match hers. ‘So...’ he quirked a dark eyebrow at her ‘...you fly out to Australia at the end of the week, you said. Direct from here? Or will you be going back to London first?’

‘I have to go back to London to pick up the rest of my things but I’ll be on the first available flight from Heathrow after we get back,’ she said curtly, stifling an exasperated sigh. Was there no shaking him off? Why was he being so persistent? She’d made it clear that she had no intention of seeing him tonight. Why bother chasing a girl who’d made it plain that she wasn’t interested? He was good-looking enough, sexy enough and probably rich enough to have just about any woman he chose.

It must be an ego thing, she decided with a disparaging twist of her lips. He wasn’t used to being brushed off, and was determined to foist his macho charm on her until he won her over. And once he’d succeeded he’d promptly lose interest himself, more likely than not, and back off with his precious ego intact.