A Scandalous Engagement Read online

  ‘It’s over the bed. There.’ She pointed to the ceiling and the patch of wallpaper underneath which had been unravelled by the dripping water.

  ‘I see.’ He walked into the room, side-stepping various articles of clothing which were lying on the ground.

  ‘Andy’s room,’ she found herself saying, just in case he thought that this mess belonged to her. At the age of twenty-two, and four years her junior, Andy still hadn’t developed any noticeable talent for clearing up behind him. Twice a week a cleaner came and purged the house, but in the intervening days he allowed his bedroom to develop the sort of teenage chaos that would have driven most mothers round the twist. She supposed that his untidiness was simply a reflection of the fact that he had never had the need to be tidy. There had always been someone else clearing up behind him, making sure that everything was neatly folded and put away. Even when he cooked, which he did with flourish, the kitchen afterwards resembled a badly bombed site.

  She edged over the wrought-iron bedframe and snatched a pair of boxer shorts off it, dropping them to the ground and then kicking them under the bed. When she raised her eyes, it was to find the plumber looking at her with an unreadable expression.

  ‘You were saying about the leak?’ she reminded him weakly, staring in concentration at the damp patch on the ceiling.

  ‘Could be serious.’

  Jade’s face blanched. ‘Serious? How serious?’ She didn’t like the sound of that. It didn’t look like much from where she was standing, but then again she wasn’t a plumber, and who knew what build-up of water could be lurking above the ceiling? She imagined Niagara Falls pouring down the wall, destroying everything in its wake, including the vastly expensive carpeting.

  ‘Can’t be sure.’ He stroked his chin again and continued to stare at her, which she failed to notice with the onset of the horrific, water-filled scenario that was now running through her head. ‘You say you…what?…spotted the water…?’

  ‘We were watching television and I felt a drip on my head,’ Jade explained, dragging her eyes away from the ceiling and meeting his, which were now glacial. ‘Andy got on the phone immediately,’ she said defensively, primed to contradict any accusations of irresponsibility, not that it should be any concern of the man in front of her. ‘I was here when he made the call, and I know that he stressed the importance of getting it seen to as soon as possible.’

  ‘And what time would that have been?’

  ‘A little after eleven in the night,’ Jade said impatiently. ‘Don’t you people keep a log book or something for incoming calls? Look, can you fix it or not?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  Jade groaned in despair. ‘But we—Andy explained to you the importance of getting this sorted out. Yet you come here without so much as a screwdriver in sight and tell me that you can’t fix it at the moment.’ She sat on the edge of the bed. ’Well, when can you fix it?’

  ‘Why don’t we go downstairs to discuss this?’

  ‘What’s there to discuss?’ It seemed perfectly clear-cut to her.

  ‘What needs to be done.’ He shrugged and continued to look at her with relentless concentration. She could almost hear his brain ticking away in his head. Probably working out the vast charges he would make at the end of this little job.

  ‘Oh, all right.’ She stood up wearily, threw one last disgusted look at the leak, which appeared so inoffensive, or had done until the Wilkins man had said otherwise, and headed out of the room.

  ‘Perhaps we could discuss the situation over a cup of coffee,’ he suggested to her, halfway down the stairs, and she paused to look at him over her shoulder.

  ‘Haven’t you got other jobs you need to get to?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’ He had stopped when she had turned to address him. Now he took another step down, and for some reason the thought of being cooped up on the staircase with this man towering over her was enough to get her legs moving again. She swung around, trailing her hand along the banister, and skipped lightly down the remainder of the stairs.

  ‘Well, I happen to be quite busy,’ she said pointedly, leading the way to the kitchen.

  ‘Of course. Doing what?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She couldn’t believe her ears. The man’s rudeness defied description.

  ‘I only ask because I’ve been here before. A few times, actually, and the house has been empty.’

  ‘Why would a plumber come to an empty house?’

  ‘Contract.’ He shrugged eloquently, as though that single word explained a host of things.

  Jade groped her way to further enlightenment. ‘Oh, I get it. You come every so often to check up on the place and make sure that everything’s running smoothly?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m surprised Andy didn’t recognise your name in the book, in that case,’ she mused aloud, filling the kettle with water and plugging it in.

  ‘We plumbers. A forgetful lot.’ He raised his eyebrows expressively, and somewhere in the depths of her head she realised that he was laughing at her.

  ‘Yes. Quite. How do you take your coffee?’

  ‘Black, one sugar. So…’ He strolled around the kitchen and finally, as she had known he would, ambled over to the kitchen table, where he looked with interest at the drawings spread across the wooden surface. From the other end of the room, Jade watched him with a growing feeling of antagonism.

  ‘Have a seat, Mr Wilkins,’ she said tightly, ‘and then perhaps we could discuss the matter at hand?’

  ‘Draw, do you?’

  ‘That’s right, and I really haven’t got the time for chit-chat.’ How much more blatant did she have to be? She filled their mugs with boiling water, wondered whether it was too late to call in another firm to have a look at the leak, and then stood stock still as he held up one of her sketches to the light and began inspecting it.

  ‘You do this professionally, do you?’ he asked, depositing the sheet of paper and replacing it with another, which he held up and inspected with the same thorough eye.

  ‘I’m an art student, as a matter of fact,’ Jade told him icily. She dumped his mug of coffee on the counter, directed him to it, and then took the opportunity to stack away some of her work, aware of him looking at her as she did so, leaning against the counter, utterly at ease.

  ‘You’re an art student. Yes, I see.’

  ‘And what precisely do you see, Mr Wilkins? A way to fixing our leak, I hope.’

  ‘Oh, yes, that shouldn’t be a big job.’

  ‘I thought you said that it was serious.’

  ‘Did I?’

  Jade’s teeth snapped together in frustration.

  ‘You know you did.’

  ‘How on earth does an art student come to be living in a house like this?’ he asked, deftly avoiding all discussion of what he had come to do.

  ‘I happen to share the place with a friend, as a matter of fact. Now, when can you send someone along to fix this leak?’

  ‘What makes you think that I won’t be the one to come and fix it myself?’

  ‘Because of your nails, aside from anything else.’

  ‘My nails?’ He looked puzzled for a few seconds, then he laughed. It was a distinctive laugh. Deep and sexy, with enough wickedness in it to turn grannies into simpering adolescents. ‘Ah, yes. Not dirty enough?’

  ‘Put it this way, Mr Wilkins, you don’t strike me as the sort of man who’s ever changed a car tyre in his life, never mind peered into the innards of a drainpipe. Now, why don’t we stop beating around the bush. Just tell me whom I can expect, when, and how much you intend to charge for your services.’

  She wondered why she hadn’t seen through his ploy before. Wasn’t it as plain as the nose on her face? Mr Heart-Stopping Big Boss makes initial appearance, charms lady of the house into winning a job which inevitably would be much smaller than he makes out, then sends his troops in with outsized invoice in hand. Probably ran a very thriving business indeed. No wonder he could
afford to dress the way he did.

  Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t in the running for good looks and cheap charm. She had never been tempted by handsome men with a sweet tongue. No, that had been her sister’s domain.

  She felt the familiar pain rush into her and rested her head momentarily against the palm of her hand. When she regained her composure, it was to find the man looking at her with sudden concern.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine.’ She didn’t feel fine. She felt sick, just as she always did whenever she thought of Caroline. ‘Just a passing headache,’ she said shakily. ‘Must be all that detailed work I’ve been doing recently.’

  ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  The remark was so accurate that Jade stared at him open-mouthed, then she blinked and shook her head. Yes, she had seen a ghost in a manner of speaking. A little over two years and the image of her sister still haunted her. All that promise sucked away at the age of twenty-four. She had a sudden, overwhelming temptation to bare her soul to this complete stranger sitting opposite her, frowning now, and she had to bite it back.

  Yes, her counsellor had said that she couldn’t hold on to the past for ever; yes, she had said that she should learn to talk to people about how she felt, to cherish the life that she had known instead of allowing it to ruin her own life. But she was in a bad way if that meant pouring her heart out to a con man whom she had spoken with for all of an hour. If that.

  ‘I think it’s time you left,’ she said, making a halfhearted attempt to rise to her feet and then sinking back to the stabilising comfort of the kitchen chair. ‘I…Andy will telephone you later to sort out…everything.’

  ‘You’re beginning to worry me, Miss Summers.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Perhaps I should get you upstairs.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She was feeling faint again. In an effort to dispel his unwanted concern, she stood up and felt herself sway, then, before she knew it, he had moved swiftly around the table and lifted her off her feet.

  ‘What are you doing! Put me down this instant.’

  ‘Forget it. I’m not going to be responsible for leaving you in this house. What if you collapse the minute I leave?’

  ‘I don’t intend to do any such thing! Put me down!’ This was a nightmare. One minute she was contentedly working away at the kitchen table; the next minute she was being carried upstairs by the local plumber, who apparently thought that she was ill and needed immediate rescue! It was farcical! She continued to demand instant release until he got to the top of the stairs, then she gave up. He was bigger than her, stronger than her, and determined to do his hero bit. Well, let him.

  He began heading towards Andy’s room and she feebly told him that he was going in the wrong direction.

  ‘I thought your bedroom was down there, leaking from the seams,’ he said.

  ‘No. Mine’s in the other direction, second from the right.’ She could smell him through his shirt, feel the hardness of his chest against her cheek. Everything about him was unashamedly masculine, she thought, from his powerful, well-built body to the way he smelled. She couldn’t wait to get away from the experience.

  ‘I do apologise,’ he said, without a hint of apology in his voice. ‘I must have misunderstood.’

  ‘I’m not interested in your misunderstandings, Mr Wilkins.’ Her bedroom door was getting closer and she breathed a sigh of relief. If Caroline were alive now, she would be grinning with merriment at the sight of her shy twin sister being manhandled by just the sort of hulk she had always made a point of avoiding. For the first time she felt a rush of affectionate memories for her sister without any of the accompanying loss and guilt.

  He kicked open her bedroom door and Jade peeked to make sure that there was nothing unfortunate lying around. Like her bra. It was spotless, just as she had left it earlier on. The bed carefully made, her clothes tidied away. Andy always laughed at her neatness, but now she couldn’t have been more grateful for it.

  ‘Just dump me on the bed,’ she instructed. ‘Then you can go. I won’t bother to see you out. Just slam the door behind you.’

  He didn’t answer. He deposited her on the bed, stood up, looked around the room with the same practised eye she had seen in evidence earlier, and then returned his gaze to her face.

  ‘You’re already looking better.’

  She knew why. The colour had returned to her cheeks because she was flushed from the feel of his arms around her. The thought was enough to make her even redder.

  ‘I’ll just have a short rest here and I’ll be as fit as a fiddle.’ She wished he would exit her bedroom, instead of standing there looking at her. Not that she had any feeling of being mentally stripped. Despite her initial worry that she might be dealing with a tedious lecher, he was not sexually interested in her. When he looked at her it was almost as though he was working something out in his head, although that could be just her imagination playing tricks on her.

  And, frankly, why should he be interested in her? He was, she reluctantly had to admit, an unusually attractive man, and she was, if she was honest, attractive enough, but hardly a Marilyn Monroe. Her hair was blonde, but straight, her features were small, but unextraordinary, and she was way too slender and flat-chested to ever be termed voluptuous. Her sister’s body had been the one that men had flocked to. More rounded, fuller everywhere, and with the good legs which they had both inherited from their mother. She had flaunted it at every available opportunity. Jade sighed and leant back against the pillows.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea or anything?’

  Jade gave him a saccharine-sweet smile. ‘I really don’t think so. You wouldn’t have a clue where to find anything, it’s not your house, and anyway cups of sweet tea don’t actually cure anything. It’s all a myth.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ he agreed. ‘So this is where you sleep?’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  He continued to survey her room critically. ‘No television. Is that why you were in the other bedroom at that hour of the evening?’

  ‘You,’ Jade said furiously, ‘are totally out of order. What I do in this house is none of your business. You came here to fix a leak, which you aren’t even competent enough to do, and if you don’t leave immediately I shall…’

  ‘Throw me out by the scruff of my neck?’

  This situation, she thought, was getting out of hand. He was beginning to frighten her a little now.

  ‘Let’s put it this way; there are other plumbers around. Now, please go!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and Jade squirmed into a sitting position, drawing her legs up and clasping her arms around them. She looked desperately towards the door, wondering whether she could make a dash for it. But if he wanted to he would have no trouble in pinning her down.

  ‘Get out or else I’m going to call the police.’ Quiet, menacing, utterly serious. He failed to be intimidated.

  ‘That won’t work either, you know,’ he said conversationally.

  ‘Want to bet?’

  ‘I don’t take money off a lady, if that’s what you are.’ He inclined his body forward slightly. ‘Nor do I wrest telephones away from people, if that’s what you’re thinking. No, it won’t make any difference who you call…’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘Because I’m Andy’s brother and I own this house.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘I DON’T believe you.’

  She did. Something hadn’t added up from the minute she had laid eyes on him. His clothes, his accent, his general charisma. But she had been expecting a plumber and she had naively assumed that because he had showed up he must be the plumber she had been waiting for. Of course, she should have asked for his card instead of innocently running with her assumptions while he played along, trying to pump information out of her all the way.

  Too late now.

  ‘Of course you believe me,’ he said coldly
. ‘But just in case there are any lingering doubts in your mind…’ He extracted a wallet from his trouser pocket, flicked it open to reveal a row of platinum and gold credit cards, and extracted his driver’s licence from one of the compartments.

  Jade dutifully took it, confirmed his identity and handed it back to him.

  She couldn’t think of a thing to say. She knew why he had come, and Andy was going to be distraught.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, Miss Summers? I’m disappointed. You were so eloquent up to ten minutes ago.’

  Jade glared at him with loathing. ‘Why didn’t you just introduce yourself at the front door and spare us both the ludicrous pretence?’

  ‘Now, why on earth should I have done that?’ He stuck his wallet away and proceeded to view her without warmth. ‘I didn’t know who the hell you were, but I was willing to stake my fortune on your not being the daily help, and you would have clamped up the minute you knew who I was. No, it was altogether far more productive for me to go along with the charade and see what I could find out along the way.’ He stood up, strolled across to the bay window and looked out before turning around. ‘You look as though you could do with a stiff drink,’ he said in a deceptively mild voice. ‘Don’t go fainting on me, now. I have too many questions to ask.’ He smiled with dangerous menace. ‘And far too many answers you’re just bursting to give.’

  ‘I’ll get in touch with Andy,’ she said, reaching across to the telephone at the side of her bed, but before she could pick up the receiver his hand was over hers like a vice, stopping her.

  ‘Not so fast, Miss Summers. You’re in my house and you’re going to listen to what I have to say. Do you read me loud and clear? And we’ll just wait for my brother to return. I’m sure he’d far rather appreciate the surprise.’

  ‘Your hand? Please remove it. I don’t appreciate the caveman approach.’

  Another of those deep, velvety, unsettling laughs, but he removed his hand and stood back.