Contract Bridegroom

CHAPTER THREE

FOR A FULL two seconds Celia stood rigid with shock, too startled to struggle. Then the firm pressure of Jethro’s lips, the warmth of his skin, the sureness with which he was coaxing her lips apart, flooded her with a wild, sweet pleasure that rippled through her limbs as inexorably as the tides rose on the beach. Sheer heaven, Celia thought, and kissed him back, her body pliant in his embrace, her hands sliding up his chest to circle his nape.

He was the heat of the sun and the freedom of the wind: everything that was elemental. He was her dream, flowering into reality in her body.

Then Jethro strained her toward him, pulling her the length of his frame, one hand burying itself in her hair, the other moving from her waist to clasp the swell of her hip.

He was fully aroused. Desire was like a sunburst in her belly, aflame with hunger and golden with pleasure, to which she surrendered with a low moan of delight. As Jethro thrust with his tongue, the flames leapt higher, encompassing her in their implacable demands. She felt his hands sweep the curve of her spine, drawing her still closer, heard him mutter her name against her lips. Her nostrils filled with the male scent of a man she had expected never to see again.

Briefly he loosened his hold, his hands reaching for the hem of her sweatshirt. Her breath caught in her throat as desire was suddenly eclipsed by terror. Darryl had done the same thing. Kissed her, then tried to fondle her breasts. But Darryl hadn’t listened when she’d asked him to stop.

She pulled back with an inarticulate cry. “Don’t, Jethro! Please, don’t.”

Her palms were flat against his chest; he was wearing a T-shirt that was like a second skin, through which she could feel the taut curve of his ribs and the heavy pounding of his heart. He said tersely, “What’s wrong?”

“Everything! We shouldn’t be doing this, it’s crazy—”

“Don’t try and tell me you didn’t like it—I know better.”

“Maybe I did like it. But not any more.”

Very deliberately he released her, stepping back, his face like a carved mask; the bruise on his jaw stood out like a brand. “Why not?”

“We don’t even know each other, we—”

“I’d say we found out one hell of a lot about each other in that kiss.”

“I’m leaving here on Sunday and we’ll never see each other again—what are you looking for, a quick lay?”

His jaw tightened. “Why were you up here waiting for me, then?”

“Waiting for you?” she squawked, almost inarticulate with rage. “You think I was waiting for you?”

“You must have known I was coming up here—I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Then you’d better expand your horizons. I most certainly didn’t know you were up here or I’d have stayed away. I told you, I wanted to be alone.”

“Come off it—you saw my Nissan parked down below and you climbed the south slope because it’s quicker.”

If she had any sense, she’d run straight back down the south slope: Jethro looked angry enough to be a greater threat than any bear. “I’ve got better things to do than chase men up mountains,” Celia blazed. “I said goodbye to you last night and I meant it. I don’t play games and I sure didn’t climb all the way up here just to have a fight with you.”

“So what was wrong with that kiss, Celia? Because that’s all it was—a kiss. You think I was about to make love to you on top of a chunk of solid rock? I’m not that desperate.”

“Aren’t you? You were giving a damn good imitation!”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?” he sneered. “You’re beautiful and sexy and it’s been a long time since I’ve bedded anyone. A very long time. Get the picture?”

“I sure do. You have a real way with compliments—that kiss was nothing to do with me, any female would have done.”

“It had everything to do with you!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Why did you get so frightened?”

Her temper died. He’d just asked the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, the one that led her straight back to Darryl. But her heart was no longer trying to batter its way out of her ribcage and Jethro had, after all, let her go when she’d asked him to. Perhaps she owed him the truth. She said, choosing her words, “I had a bad experience with a man once, and I don’t want to repeat it.” From somewhere she dredged up a smile. “The way I backed off—don’t take it personally, in other words.”

His face had hardened. “Were you raped?”

“No. A friend turned up at the door so he stopped.”

“Son of a bitch,” Jethro said in a ugly voice.

Her tension collapsed in a smile. “For once, we’re in agreement.”

“How long ago did it happen?”

“Four or five years ago.”

“You’ve gone to bed with the doctor since then.”

She tossed her wind-tangled curls. “I have not.”

“You’re not telling me you’re a virgin?” Jethro said incredulously. “I don’t believe you.”

“Imagine that,” Celia said nastily. “Jethro, this has been all very entertaining, but I have to go home. I’ve got a ton of things to do.”

He looked like a man doing some hard thinking. “We can walk down together.”

“Your vehicle’s parked in the north lot.”

“If I can climb K2, I’m sure I can walk as far as my car.”

“K2?” she repeated, and wondered why she wasn’t surprised. K2 was probably the most difficult mountain in the world, a much more demanding climb than Everest. No wonder Jethro hadn’t been breathing hard at the top of Gun Hill.

He gave an exasperated sigh. “Back home, I have a reputation for being close-mouthed—that’s a laugh.”

Celia said evenly, “Why didn’t you fly out this morning?”

“Wasn’t ready to.”

“You had this sudden, irresistible urge to climb Gun Hill,” she said sarcastically.

He raised his brow. “One thing I like about you is your intelligence.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask what else he liked. The way she’d kissed him as if there were no tomorrow? As if they were standing on top of the world, responsible to no one? “Let’s go,” she said stiffly. “I shouldn’t even have come up here—my cupboards are a disaster and the movers arrive first thing in the morning.”

She started down the hill ahead of him, picking her way through the boulders and pockets of soggy peat to the treeline, where rusty-tipped ferns brushed her knees. And with every step she took, she was trying to banish the memory of a kiss that had turned her world upside down. She’d never felt even remotely like that when Paul had kissed her; which must be the reason she’d stayed out of his bed.

A flock of kinglets peeped in the trees; shadows slanted across her path. Then Jethro touched her shoulder from behind. “Look, Celia, an eagle.”

Shading her eyes with her hand, Celia watched the great brown wings circle the thermals, the sun dazzling on the bird’s white head and outspread tail. “Wonderful,” she murmured. “Look how it soars…now that’s freedom.”

His dark blue eyes resting on her face, Jethro said, “Freedom…is that why you haven’t married?”

Married. Her father. Jethro.

The words fell together like the last pieces of a very complicated jigsaw puzzle. Without stopping to think, Celia gasped, “Jethro, are you married?”

“Nope.”

“Engaged? Living with someone? Otherwise spoken for?”

“No, no and no. What are you getting at, Celia?”

She gaped at him. “N-nothing, I was just curious,” she stammered, turned on her heel and started down the path as though ten black bears were after her.

She couldn’t. She’d be out of her mind.

Ask Jethro Lathem to marry her? A man compounded of sex appeal, rage and mystery? A man who had only to kiss her to make her understand, truly understand for the first time in her life, the meaning of desire?

Get a life, Celia.

But who else could she ask?

Forcing herself to concentrate on the rough trail, skidding on stones, Celia leaped from rock to rock with the agility of panic. She wouldn’t ask Paul to take on a fake marriage, he’d be horribly hurt. Nor could she ask Darryl or Pedro, either of whom would be delighted. Or any of the men back in Washington who’d been more interested in her father’s fortune than in her.

Jethro didn’t know about her money. And there was no way she could hurt him; she knew instinctively that he’d never let her close enough to do that.

She couldn’t ask him. She couldn’t.

Out of the question.

A spruce bough slapped Celia’s cheek. Her heart was racing in her breast in a way that had nothing to do with her precipitous descent of Gun Hill. She’d never been a coward before. Was she going to start now? Her father could be dead in three months, any chance of reconciliation gone. Is that what she wanted?

How far was she willing to go to set Ellis Scott’s mind to rest in the short time he had left? A long way, she thought. A very long way. Deep down she was still bitterly ashamed of their last horrific argument. At the age of nineteen, in her second year at Harvard, she’d discovered that her father had been having her watched; she was being followed by a bodyguard he’d hired. And she’d lost it.

She’d taken the first train home and confronted Ellis, and as though a lock had broken on her tongue, the pent-up feelings of years had poured out: her loneliness in those bleak months after her mother’s death, when her father had retreated from her in all the ways that mattered. Her resentment of his unceasing control of her actions, the nannies who’d forbidden her to climb trees, the directives to the schools banning her from the high-diving towers and the gymnastic equipment. Her fury when he’d refused to sponsor her for the junior slalom team when she was fourteen; too dangerous, he’d said.

Control, control, control.

She’d yelled at him, her fists clenched at her sides, tears streaming down her face. He hadn’t yelled back. She’d have preferred it if he had. In a cold, clipped voice he’d accused her of ingratitude and wanton rebellion; she was anything, he’d said, but her mother’s daughter. Which had been the unkindest cut of all.

He’d been cruel, certainly, that day eight years ago. But was that how she wanted to remember him?

It was all too easy to interpret his wish to see her married as yet another strand in that stifling over-protectiveness, as one more link in those manacles of control. Older now, perhaps a little wiser, Celia was finally prepared to consider the possibility that this was the only way Ellis knew how to say he loved her.

She loved him, too. Of course she did. Although it was a very long time since she’d told him so.

She could stand anything for three months, surely? Even a fake marriage whose sole intent was to relieve her father of a burden of anxiety he’d carried for years.

She bit her lip. Do it, Celia. Do it. Now.

Because there’s nobody else to ask. And you’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t make peace with your father.

She stopped dead in her tracks. Jethro cannoned into her, his arms going round her in a reflex action, circling her waist. She twisted in his embrace and said with the bluntness of desperation, “Jethro, will you marry me?”

“What?”

For the first time since she’d met him, Celia saw she’d knocked Jethro off balance. He’d paled under his tan; his eyes were like twin blades of steel. She bit her lip. “Oh God, that’s not what I meant to say. At least, it is, but not—”

“Did you ask me to marry you?”

“Yes,” she gulped. “But it’s not what you think, it’s—”

“You don’t have any idea what I’m thinking,” he said with menacing softness. “Nor do you want to know.”

“I-I should have said I’ve got a proposal for you. A business proposal.”

“You’re just like the rest of them.”

His voice was as caustic as acid. “What do you mean?” she blurted.

“For a while I thought…but I should have known better. You saw the newspaper article, didn’t you, Celia? Of course you did. Although I’ll give you this—your tactics are different than most.”

“I don’t have any idea what—”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he exploded. “Quit pretending, will you? The game’s over.”

“If you’d keep quiet for a minute and listen, I’ll tell you what I’m—”

“The voice of an angel and a beauty that knocks me sideways—I thought I was too old to fall for that crap.”

“Jethro,” Celia said tautly, “stop looking at me like I’m some kind of disgusting squishy thing you’ve turned up under a rock. My proposal’s strictly business—do you hear me?”

Her voice had risen. “Yeah,” he drawled, “I hear you.”

She was still standing locked in his embrace, her palms flat to his T-shirt. He smelled faintly of sweat; he looked thoroughly dangerous and not at all business-like. The trouble was, she didn’t feel business-like, either. Not with his mouth only inches from hers, his lean, hard body pressed against hers. She said frantically, “Strictly business,” and struggled to keep her wits. “I need a husband for three months. A temporary marriage, that’s all, drawn up legally with a contract.”

“That’s all?” he repeated, with a depth of sarcasm that made her flinch.

“I’d pay you, Jethro. Quite a lot of money. You’d be able to put it toward another boat to replace Starspray.”

“You let me worry about Starspray,” he snarled. “You don’t know the first thing about me and you’re asking me to marry you? I take back what I said about your intelligence. You’re out to lunch, lady.”

Every nerve pulled tight, Celia gazed up at him. Beneath a formidable level of rage, he looked…was disappointed the right word? Ferociously disappointed, as though somehow she’d let him down. In a major way. She said defiantly, “I know quite a lot about you. You’re courageous—you rescued your friend, didn’t you? You’re an adventurer, with the guts and determination to climb the most challenging mountain in the world. You’ve got class. Tons of it. And up there on the mountain top when I said no, you backed off.” Suddenly she pushed away from him. “I’m doing this all wrong!”

“You finally got something right. Why three months, Celia? And where are you going to get the money to pay me? Rob a bank?”

The wind wafted a long strand of hair across her face. She pushed it back and said steadily, “My father’s a rich man. And two years ago I inherited my mother’s trust fund. Sixty thousand dollars, that’s what I’m prepared to pay you.”

The amount she named didn’t even make him blink. He pounced with the speed of a predator. “So why are you working for the Coast Guard if you’ve got that much money?”

“There are conditions to this marriage,” she said flatly. “One of which is a high degree of privacy.”

“Do tell me the others.”

She hated that note in his voice; it made her feel about ten years old. “No sex. No contact after the time’s up—you’d vanish from my life and you wouldn’t come back. Ever. And you’d sign a contract to that effect.”

“Charming,” Jethro said.

“It’s a business deal—I told you that! Not the romance of the century.”

“I get the message—I’m not totally devoid of brains. Although I must admit when I offered to help you as a way of thanking you for saving my life, marriage wasn’t what I had in mind.” He picked up a handful of her hair, running it through his fingers; in the afternoon sun it glinted like the most delicate copper wire. “No sex?” he repeated softly. “Are you sure about that?”

She pulled back, feeling the tug at her scalp, panic nibbling at her control. “No sex. That’s what I said.”

His hands dropped to his sides. “The answer’s no.”

“But—”

“I don’t give a damn how rich you are, I’m not into being bought.”

He meant it. The contempt in his face seemed to strip Celia naked, leaving her utterly defenceless and deeply ashamed. He loathed her, she thought numbly. Despised her for trying to buy him as though he were a stick of furniture. Oh God, why had she started this?

With a tiny whimper of distress, she whirled and ran down the slope, tears blurring her vision. What a fool she’d been! Why hadn’t she stopped to think? Isn’t that what had so often angered her father, that she acted before she thought, leaping before she looked?

All too close behind her she heard the scrape of Jethro’s boot on a boulder, heard him say roughly, “Celia—God almighty, slow down before you break your neck!”

It could have been her father speaking. Don’t do this, don’t do that, it’s not safe, you’ll hurt yourself. She hated Jethro, hated him. As she swiped at her eyes, her toe hit an exposed root, tumbling her forward. She flung out her hands to protect herself and thudded to the ground, her shoulder crushing the ferns, the dirt scraping her palms. One cheek struck a rock with bruising force. She cried out with pain and found she was weeping as though her heart was broken.

Then Jethro was lifting her. “Are you hurt? Let me see your face.”

There was a note in his voice Celia hadn’t heard before; it had nothing to do with contempt. She burrowed into his chest, feeling his arms go around her, and sobbed, “He’s dying…don’t you see? He’s dying—that’s why I’ve got to get m-married.”

“Who’s dying?”

“My father,” she wailed. “Three months, that’s what the doctor says. He and I, we haven’t—for once I just want to be a g-good daughter. Oh Jethro, I don’t know what else to do!”

Jethro said incisively, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. But this is what we’re going to do. I’ll carry you down the rest of the slope, drive you home and clean up your hands, and then you’re going to tell me why you have to get married because your father’s dying. Here…blow your nose.”

A clean white handkerchief was being held to her face. Celia, who hated being told what to do, blew her nose. “You can’t c-carry me, it’s too far,” she hiccuped.

“Try me.”

Kneeling, he gathered her into his arms. Then he stood up and started picking his way down the hill. “And keep quiet,” he added. “You’ve said more than enough in the last ten minutes.”

“You sure like giving orders,” Celia said, leaning her sore cheek against his chest and closing her eyes.

She felt utterly safe.

She hated safety. So why did it feel like heaven on earth to surrender herself to Jethro? A man—despite what she’d said—she scarcely knew.

Her cheek hurt. So did her hip and her knees and her hands. But it was her pride that was hurt worst of all.

Jethro had said no.

Jethro was breathing hard by the time Celia’s Toyota came in sight. He’d let himself get out of shape since K2, he thought, and glanced down at the woman in his arms. Her eyes were shut, tear tracks still streaking her face. Her bare knees were scraped and dirty. There was something so trusting in the way she’d curled herself against his chest; it touched him in a place he very rarely allowed himself to be touched.

With good reason. Women who knew how rich he was weren’t to be trusted. In consequence, there was only one kind of touch he allowed from a woman, and it wasn’t the emotional kind.

Had he ever been quite so angry as when Celia had asked him—out of the blue—to marry him? What did she think he was—a total fool? And naive as a five-year-old into the bargain? How dare she try and jerk him around like that?

The trouble was, if he was honest, he’d be forced to admit that under his rage was a disappointment bitter enough to choke him. She was like the rest. No different from Elisabeth, who’d tried to persuade him she was pregnant and he was the father; or Marliese, who’d threatened him with a lawsuit for breach of promise. Or Candy or Judith or Noreen who’d spent his money like it was going out of style.

Celia—or so he’d thought—was different. She genuinely hadn’t seem interested in his money, no matter that she’d read the newspaper article. Nor in pursuing him in any way. Which—again if he were honest—had irritated the hell out of him. He was used to fighting women off. Not chasing after them. But wasn’t the decisive way she’d said goodbye last night one of the several reasons he hadn’t gotten on the first plane out of here this morning?

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