Helen Brooks
THE BILLIONAIRE’S
MARRIAGE MISSION

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

AS THE DOOR CLICKED gently shut behind her the quiet sound registered with all the force of a thunderclap on Beth Marton’s ears. For a second she froze, unbelieving; then she turned, gingerly pushing against the unyielding wood. Of course it didn’t budge—but then it wouldn’t with the latch having sprung shut.

‘Oh, no, no.’ Beth pushed again, harder this time, even as she told herself it was pointless. She was locked out. If she had been standing outside her flat in London that wouldn’t have mattered. There were at least a couple of neighbours always around that she could have called on in the block in which the flat was situated, and one of them could have telephoned her sister who had a spare key for emergencies. But this was not London…

She glanced somewhat wildly about her, vitally aware she was clad in nothing but bubblegum-pink silk pyjamas with spaghetti shoulder straps. The dark windy night was not encouraging. And rain was forecast.

When a cold nose nudged one hand she glanced down at the big dog who was surveying her with impatient eyes. ‘I know, I know,’ she muttered. ‘We’re out here and your dinner’s in there, but it was you who insisted you needed the loo a minute ago.’

And it was her who had followed Harvey outside with the torch so she could make sure he didn’t disappear into the blackness. Which was doubly daft in hindsight, considering he knew it was dinner time—Harvey’s favourite moment of the day—and also that there was nowhere he could really go. The garden surrounding the little cottage she was renting was all neatly fenced.

A gust of wind brought the smell of smoke on the air, reminding Beth she had lit the fire in the sitting room a few minutes before. And the guard wasn’t in front of it but standing to one side of the slate hearth.

Panicking now, she scurried round the outside of the cottage to see if any of the windows just might be on the latch, although she doubted it. When she had arrived at the place half an hour ago, travel weary after a journey she wouldn’t have wished on her worst enemy but hugely relieved to have found the isolated building in the dark, everything had appeared shuttered and closed. After retrieving the front door key which had been hidden under a plant pot as the agent had told her, she had lugged all her stuff inside, only stopping to bung perishable food into the little fridge before she had stripped off for a wonderfully welcome shower.

Once the stickiness of the tortuous journey—which had consisted of traffic jam after traffic jam—had been removed she hadn’t been able to face the thought of dressing again, and so had pulled on her pyjamas before opening a bottle of wine and lighting the fire. Harvey’s enormous basket established in a handy corner, and a tin of his favourite food open in the tiny cottage kitchen, she’d been about to feed him when he’d made it plain he needed to be let outside for a moment.

‘Ow!’ As she slipped on something squelchy and ended up on her bottom in something which smelt utterly disgusting, her eyeballs rattled with the jolt to her system. The urge to cry was suddenly and very childishly paramount, but instead she recovered the torch which had fallen out of her hand and struggled to her feet. Harvey seemed to have quite forgotten about his dinner and was entering into this new game with gusto, jumping about her and barking delightedly. He’d found the long journey from London to Shropshire boring but this was altogether more like it.

Thankfully the torch still worked, but Beth didn’t need its light to tell her a fox or badger obviously skulked about the cottage garden at night. The smell on her pyjamas and fluffy mules did the job more than adequately.

Walking round the building to the front door again, she stood for a moment, shivering in the cold May night. The day itself had been quite warm, too warm in view of the hours spent stuck unmoving in traffic, but the night air had a bite to it which said summer wasn’t quite round the corner yet.

She would have to smash a window and climb in somehow; there was nothing else for it. Beth gazed at the beautiful old leaded lights in the sitting room windows. All the glass was the same, and when she had drawn up earlier and admired the mullioned effect she had thought then they must be quite valuable. The cottage was tiny and chocolate boxy, complete with thatched roof, wooden beams throughout and all the charm one would expect considering it was a couple of centuries old. But charm didn’t help her right at this minute.

Harvey’s stomach was rumbling and the game had lost its appeal. He began to whine and when an enormous long-haired German shepherd dog whined it wasn’t the same as a poodle. Beth couldn’t hear herself think. ‘All right, all right.’ She shushed him with a click of her fingers. She was going to do a considerable amount of damage if she smashed one of these lovely old windows but she couldn’t think of any other course of action. As far as she could recall, she hadn’t passed another dwelling place for some miles once she had turned into the long lane which had eventually led to the cottage. Besides which, she was hardly dressed to go tramping round the Shropshire countryside.

She shone the torch on the window as she pressed the glass. Each window was stone mullioned and the leaded lights appeared to be supported by steel bars behind them. She wasn’t even sure she could climb in if she did manage to break the glass. Of course she could smash one of her car windows but she’d freeze to death in there tonight, and in the morning she’d still have the same problem, her car keys and everything else being in the cottage.

‘Oh, Harvey.’ The urge to cry was back. This, on top of everything else that had happened lately was too much. Why, when she was trying to pick herself up and sort herself out, was she hampered at every turn? It just wasn’t fair. She sniffed miserably and Harvey, now sensing all was not well, pressed protectively against her legs. She plumped down on the doorstep and put her arms round the shaggy neck, tears running down her cheeks. And it was like that, huddled into the warm animal fur, that she first noticed moving lights on the hillside.

Someone was driving down the lane leading to the cottage!

Jumping up, she dashed past her car and the small area of lawn which made up the front garden and opened the big swing gate, holding Harvey’s leather collar as she waited for whoever it was to reach them. She shone the torch anxiously into the road, hoping the vehicle owner wouldn’t just drive straight past. It wasn’t as if she looked as though she might be a dangerous mugger or something, she reasoned frantically, not in her pyjamas. But for that same reason she wanted any potential rescuer to see Harvey and know she had the sort of guard dog it wasn’t wise to ignore. You heard such horrible things these days about women being attacked when they asked strangers for help.

It seemed an eternity before the car reached them but it could only have been a minute or two. Then brilliant headlights lit up the darkness, swallowing the meagre light from the torch. A large estate car swept by before Beth could blink. For an awful moment she thought the driver hadn’t noticed them standing on the grass verge, but then she heard the screech of brakes after the car had disappeared from view round a bend in the road. A few seconds later it reversed and came to a stop at the side of them.

The window wound down and a deep male voice, in tones of mingled amazement and amusement, drawled, ‘What the dickens are you doing out here dressed like that?’

Enjoying myself? For a moment she almost let her tongue rule her brain before logic told her she had to get this guy on her side, whoever he was. Biting back the caustic retort which had sprung to her lips, she said evenly, ‘I appear to have locked myself out when I was seeing to my dog. I don’t suppose you’ve got anything in the car I could force the door with?’ She swung the torch in the direction of his face as she spoke and saw him flinch as the bright light hit his eyes. ‘Sorry.’ She lowered it immediately but the brief glimpse had been enough to tell her the man was dark-haired and youngish; beyond that she hadn’t been able to see.

‘You’re asking me to do a bit of breaking and entering?’

Amusement was definitely paramount now and Beth had to take a deep breath before she could say sweetly, ‘I suppose so, yes. Can you help?’ She was shivering from head to foot and in a minute her teeth would being to chatter, and this clown found the situation funny. The unfeeling so-and-so.

‘You’re cold.’

She hoped it was her shaking he had noticed and not the way her nipples were standing out like chapel hat pegs against the thin silk of her pyjama top. Not that she could do anything about it; she couldn’t even cross her arms over her chest with one hand holding Harvey’s collar and the other clutching the torch. ‘A bit,’ she said steadily. ‘Which is why I’d like to get back in as soon as possible.’

The engine was turned off and the driver’s door opened, a big figure uncurling itself from the dark depths of the vehicle. The next moment she was being handed a bulky jacket which must have been on the passenger seat beside him. ‘Here, put this on,’ he said easily, glancing down at Harvey who had begun a low rumbling growl in the back of his throat.

Beth didn’t try to stop the dog; in fact she made a mental note to give him an extra handful of his favourite biscuits once they were inside. The man was tall—very tall—and intimidatingly broad-shouldered and muscular from what she could ascertain in the dim light. She didn’t like to shine the torch up into his face again to get a good look at him but she was feeling distinctly nervous, being so scantily clad.

The next moment the stranger crouched down so that his head was in line with Harvey’s powerful jaws, his voice relaxed and soothing as he said, ‘Steady, boy. No one’s going to harm your mistress,’ and offered a hand for the dog to sniff.

There was a brief pause and then the rumbling stopped and a large pink tongue licked the man’s hand as Harvey’s tail wagged a greeting. Beth wondered if Harvey would look quite so pleased with himself if he knew he’d just blown the extra biscuits.

‘Nice dog.’ The man stood up and stretched out a hand, saying, ‘Give me the torch while you put the coat on.’

Beth didn’t see any point in arguing. If he was going to hit her over the head with something and have his wicked way with her, it might as well be the torch as anything else. Clearly Harvey was going to be no help whatsoever.

The man pushed past her and walked to the cottage door as she slipped the jacket on. It drowned her, but right at this moment that was very welcome. She followed him, Harvey trotting at her side, and watched as he first tried the door and then walked round the building checking each window as she’d done. Of course he didn’t end up sitting in fox or badger dung.

When he re-emerged from the back of the cottage Beth said a little testily, ‘I’d already tried all the windows.’

He didn’t comment on this. What he did say was, ‘What’s that terrible smell? Raw sewage?’

‘I slipped over at the back of the house. I think an animal had been there.’

‘And how.’ He didn’t bother to try to hide his amusement.

She wasn’t about to stand in the wind and cold discussing how she smelt. And he hadn’t exactly been a gentleman to mention it in the first place. ‘So, can you get me in?’ she asked shortly. ‘It’s freezing out here.’

‘Probably, but I don’t intend to. There’s no point in forcing the door or a window and causing a considerable amount of damage when you can contact the agent in the morning and ask them to call by. This place is rented by Turner & Turner, isn’t it? The local estate agent?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘So I suggest you come back to my place and get a good night’s sleep and we’ll sort it in the morning. You haven’t got anything on the stove in there, have you? Nothing’s going to cause a problem?’

Was he mad? She would no more think of going back to ‘his place’ than flying to the moon. Stiffly now, Beth said, ‘I lit a fire. I can’t leave it.’

‘You already have,’ he pointed out silkily.

‘The guard wasn’t in front of it.’

‘There’s hardly any smoke coming out of the chimney so it’s probably dying out already. It’ll be all right.’

So now he was an expert on fires? ‘I can’t possibly just walk away; you must see that?’

‘Of course you can.’ The comment about the estate agent had told her he must be a local, and this was confirmed now when he added, ‘I know John Turner; I’ll call him myself in the morning and explain the situation. You’ll be back in by ten o’clock. He’d prefer that than breaking and entering, I’m sure.’

She didn’t want to be back in by ten o’clock, she wanted to be back in now. ‘If you know him, can’t you phone now?’

She could see the silhouette of his head shaking as he said, ‘No can do. Friday night is John’s snooker night with the lads. Nothing gets in the way of that.’

This was absolutely ridiculous. ‘I couldn’t possibly go home with you, Mr…?’

‘Black. Travis Black. Why couldn’t you come home with me, Miss…?’

‘My name’s Beth Marton and I’m not in the habit of accepting overnight accommodation with complete strangers,’ she said tightly, refusing to acknowledge Harvey, who had set himself down at the side of Travis Black for all the world as though he was his dog instead of hers. The traitor.

‘We’re not strangers, we’ve introduced ourselves.’ It was lazy and the amusement was back tenfold. ‘And rest assured I’m not so desperate for female company that I’ve seized on your unfortunate predicament with rape and pillage in mind. It’s a genuine offer; you’ll sleep alone, especially in view of that…unusual scent you’re wearing.’

Swine. Dignity was hellishly difficult in view of the pink silk pyjamas and the smell, but Beth made a stab at it as she said crisply, ‘Thank you for the offer but I couldn’t, Mr Black. There’s Harvey, for one thing.’

‘I wasn’t proposing you tie him up and leave him here. Of course he comes too.’ He turned at this point, beginning to walk back to his car. ‘Still, it’s up to you.’

‘Where are you going?’ Beth knew her voice was too shrill but she couldn’t help it. He wasn’t going to just leave her here, was he? No one would be so hard-hearted…would they?

‘Home.’ He didn’t bother to turn round. ‘It’s late and it’s been a long day. I’m hungry, tired and it’s beginning to rain. You can come with me or stay here—it’s up to you.’

She didn’t move until he had actually seated himself in the car; she couldn’t quite believe he was just going to drive off. When he started the engine she admitted defeat, especially with the few spots of rain turning into a steady downpour.

She hurried across the garden to the gate, Harvey bounding at her heels, and tapped on the driver’s window. It lowered. This time she kept the light just clear of his eyes but allowed the torch to give her a clear view of his face. It was an interesting face. Not handsome exactly—it was too rugged for that and the bright light showed up a scar on one chiselled cheekbone, but it had something which would make any red-blooded woman take a second glance. His hair was ebony-black but she couldn’t determine the colour of his eyes with the brightness of the light distorting everything.

‘I can’t stay out here all night,’ she muttered. ‘There might not be anyone else pass by.’

‘Sure fire bet,’ he agreed pleasantly. ‘My house is the only other building along here and the lane finishes at my front garden.’

And he had just been going to drive off knowing that? ‘Where do I put Harvey?’ she asked stiffly.

In reply he got out of the car and opened the back of the estate. Harvey jumped in and settled on the big blanket there as though he had been doing it all his life. Beth glared at the animal as Travis pulled the door down. He then walked round the vehicle and opened the passenger door for her without saying a word, but she just knew he was smiling inside.

She slid in. ‘Thank you.’ It was said through gritted teeth.

‘My pleasure.’ He closed the door very gently.

Once he had joined her in the car she became even more aware of the height and breadth of him and felt all the more vulnerable because of it. She also became rather more aware of the truly disgusting smell emanating from her clothes. ‘I hope I don’t spoil the seat,’ she said in a small voice as the car began to move. She had noticed the car was a top of the range Mercedes Estate. She bet it was the first time the beautiful interior had been subjected to such abuse.

‘It’s leather; it’ll sponge down if necessary. Once we get to my place you can have a shower and I’ll sort out something clean for you to put on. It won’t be pink, though,’ he added, deadpan.

‘Not your colour?’ Beth asked in the same tone.

‘Clashes with my eyes.’ He grinned without looking at her.

‘Right.’ He was trying to put her at her ease. And, she reminded herself, he was providing a roof over her head for the night and if he hadn’t come along she would have been in a real fix. ‘This is very kind of you,’ she said belatedly.

‘That’s me all over. Orphans, strays, lost sheep…’

‘Yeah, right.’ He was joking but the way she was feeling it was a little too near the mark. Beth forced all emotion out of her voice as she said, ‘If yours is the only place on this road I was lucky you came along.’

‘Especially as I don’t live here all the time. I mostly work and live in Bristol.’

‘Oh, yes?’ She glanced at the hard profile. ‘What do you do?’ He wasn’t the type of man you could easily pin a label on.

‘Industrial design.’

That covered a thousand and one possible avenues, but as his voice had been dismissive Beth didn’t like to ask what he specialised in. Instead she said, ‘So your home here is a sort of weekend place?’

‘More of a bolt-hole,’ he said shortly. ‘And you? Do you work?’

She nodded. ‘Although I’m taking a break for a while. I’m an architect.’

She waited for the surprise which normally—and, as far as Beth was concerned, unflatteringly—followed this statement when she was talking to a man socially. As far as the male race seemed to think, the fact that she was slender and finely boned with honey-blonde hair and big blue eyes precluded her from having a profession which involved visiting construction sites and dealing with builders, among other things. The least of the offenders usually attempted to hide their amazement and say something like, ‘Really? How interesting,’ as they eyed her up and down blankly. The worst guffawed and said they didn’t believe it.

Travis merely nodded. ‘Work for a practice or local authority, or freelance?’

‘A practice. They’re holding my job for six months.’

She’d anticipated more questions but when none were forthcoming settled more easily into her seat, having become aware she was holding herself as taut as piano wire. The trees either side of the narrow lane formed a canopy overhead and the night was pitch black, the car’s powerful headlights cutting through the darkness but somehow emphasising the loneliness of her surroundings. Her stomach kept flipping over like a pancake on Shrove Tuesday.

And then suddenly there were massive gates in front of them which Travis opened by remote control within the car. They drove through on to a pebbled drive and almost immediately the vista opened up and Beth saw a large house a hundred yards or so in the distance.

She didn’t know what she had been expecting—probably a cottage similar to the one she was renting or something a little bigger—but it wasn’t this mansion of a place in what was virtually a small park. She glanced at Travis—a quick look—but his eyes were on the windscreen. As bolt-holes went, this certainly wasn’t the norm. Mind you, she was beginning to think Travis wasn’t exactly the norm either, she thought ruefully.

Well-tended landscaped grounds stretched either side of the winding drive, and by the time they drew up in the horseshoe-shaped pebbled area in front of the house Beth had to admit privately to being somewhat overawed. Even if she had been dressed to the nines and perfectly coiffured she’d have felt a bit intimidated, she told herself silently. As it was…

Her thoughts made it all the more incongruous when Travis exited the car and walked round the bonnet to help her out of the vehicle as though they were on a date or something. She tried to be as graceful and dignified as present circumstances allowed—which wasn’t saying much.

Outside lights situated at the front of the house had clicked on automatically as they’d arrived, but, flustered as she was, Beth had been concentrating on the absurdity of her situation rather than anything else. Now, as she slid out of the Mercedes with his warm hand supporting her, she looked at him—really looked at him—for the first time. A little bolt of electricity caused her breath to catch in her throat. Grey, she thought inconsequentially. His eyes are grey.

‘What’s the name of your dog?’

‘What?’ The cool voice had registered but her scrambled brain hadn’t been able to compute.

‘Your dog?’ he repeated patiently.

She became aware of the barking. Harvey was taking exception to being stuck in the vehicle when they were outside. ‘Oh, Harvey. His name’s Harvey.’

‘I suggest you get ready to reassure him. He’ll be meeting my dogs in a moment and I’d prefer him to be friendly.’

The slight hiccup in her thought processes caused by the piercing quality of the deep grey eyes fringed by spiky black lashes evaporated. ‘Harvey is always friendly,’ she said tightly before she realised it didn’t exactly reaffirm his guard dog persona.

‘Good. Sheba and Sky aren’t.’

The next moment he had opened the back of the estate car and Harvey had jumped down and, before she could ask him what he’d meant, he was turning the key in the lock of the front door. Immediately two grizzly bears—or that was what they looked like to Beth—bounded on to the drive.

There was a tense moment or two, on Beth’s side, while the two dogs circled Harvey, but his wagging tail and lolling grin didn’t falter. Within seconds the three dogs were inspecting each other’s rear ends and introducing themselves. Beth sighed with relief. ‘They’re lovely,’ she said unconvincingly, keeping her eye on the dogs in case they suddenly decided to go cannibal and give Harvey a hard time. ‘What are they?’

‘Apart from being female, I haven’t a clue,’ Travis said easily, clicking his fingers, at which signal both dogs shot to his side and sat down. ‘They were dumped by the side of a road in a cardboard box at five or six weeks old. A friend of mine saw the incident and something made him go back and look inside the box. The vet reckons there’s a number of breeds in there, but who’s counting?’

Whatever their pedigree, Harvey seemed to find the two dogs attractive. Beth noticed he’d gone into macho man mode as he sauntered up to Travis and leered at the two females.

As they entered the house Beth’s first impression was one of space and mellow wood. The large hall was oak floored, as was the wide curving staircase which led to a galleried first floor. The walls were light with several modern paintings providing vivid splashes of colour, and just a small oak table, either side of which stood two upholstered hardbacked chairs, broke the clean lines.

‘I’m sure you’d like to shower and change while I feed the dogs. Has Harvey been fed yet?’ Travis was walking to the staircase as he spoke and his dogs stopped at the foot of it. Presumably they weren’t allowed upstairs.

‘No, he hasn’t. I was just about to give him his food when we got locked out.’ Beth followed Travis up the stairs after telling Harvey to stay. He made no objection, plonking himself firmly in the middle of the two females, where he appeared quite content. So much for the guard dog routine.

The oak floor continued along the galleried landing and, after leaning over to make sure Harvey was still behaving himself, Beth joined Travis where he was standing by an open bedroom door. ‘You’ll find some T-shirts and jogging bottoms in the wardrobe and a guest robe behind the bathroom door,’ he said easily. ‘Make yourself at home. There’s plenty of hot water. When you’re ready, come downstairs and find me in the kitchen. Do you like spaghetti Bolognese?’

‘What? Oh, yes. Yes, thank you.’ Terribly flustered, Beth stepped into the ankle-deep cream carpet of what was obviously a guest room and Travis shut the door behind her, leaving her alone. She gazed around her. The coffee and cream room had definitely been decorated and furnished by someone with minimalist taste, but it was beautiful. She suspected the whole house would be beautiful.

Gingerly, as though she was going to leave a trail of dirt and destruction, she made her way over to the open door of the en suite bathroom, which reflected the colours of the bedroom, and peered into the huge mirror stretching over a pair of basins.

She groaned out loud at the reflection staring back at her. Not only were her pyjamas and slippers the worse for wear, but a large smear of mud—at least she hoped it was merely mud and not what she’d slipped in—had deposited itself on the side of her face. Her hair had dried in a tangled riot in the wind and her make-up free face was shiny where it wasn’t filthy. She looked like something the cat wouldn’t deign to drag in. Not even if it was desperate.

Ten minutes later she felt more like herself. She had found face and body lotion along with shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom cabinet, and once she was clean, moisturised and sweet-smelling everything didn’t seem so bad. After blow-drying her hair into its normal silky shoulder-length bob, she found some women’s T-shirts and jogging bottoms neatly folded in a drawer in the otherwise empty wardrobe. Fleetingly she wondered who they belonged to. His girlfriend, maybe? she thought as she put her own things in water.

Right, time to face him again. She padded downstairs in bare feet, aware that her stomach was jumping with trepidation, which was daft, really daft, but she didn’t seem able to help it.

Once in the hall, she stared about her. Travis had said she should join him in the kitchen but there were several doors leading off the expanse in front of her. Assuming the kitchen was probably at the back of the house, she made her way down the hall towards the furthest door and knocked nervously before she opened it. ‘Hello, it’s me,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘Hi.’ Travis was stirring something on the stove, the three dogs lying at his feet, apparently replete and content. Harvey wagged his tail at the sight of her but didn’t bother to get up. ‘Grab a seat,’ Travis continued, ‘and pour yourself a glass of wine.’

She was conscious of one piercingly thorough glance before he turned back to the stove. That, and the sight of the big powerful body clothed in a black cotton shirt, open at the neck, and black denim jeans was enough to make her all fingers and thumbs as she sat down at the big farmhouse-style kitchen table and reached for the open bottle of wine.

Large though the table was, it was swallowed by the roomy capaciousness of the kitchen. The stone-flagged floor, honey-coloured wooden cupboards and granite work surfaces looked like a blending of old with new but it was very pleasing to the eye. The wine was very pleasing to the tastebuds. Deep red and with aromas of blackcurrant and cherry, Beth found it steadied her nerves nicely.

After several sips she was sufficiently calm to say evenly, ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Not a thing. It’s ready.’ Within a moment he had whisked two plates of spaghetti Bolognese over to the table along with a dish of lightly roasted vegetables. Beth’s mouth watered. As Travis sat down he said matter-of-factly, ‘You clean up nicely. More than nicely.’

‘Thank you.’ She knew she had turned an unflattering shade of red and it was annoying. It wasn’t as though she was a stranger to compliments from the male of the species; it was just that this particular male was altogether…disturbing. Which was the last thing in the world she needed right now. ‘And thanks for feeding us,’ she added, indicating Harvey with a wave of her hand. ‘I really didn’t intend to put you to so much trouble when I waved you down earlier,’ she finished primly.

The grey eyes surveyed her expressionlessly. In the bright light of the kitchen his face was rugged and attractive, full of very sharply defined planes and angles which the scar down one cheek heightened. His nose was straight, his thick brows and eyelashes the same coal black as his hair, and his mouth was sexy. This last thought was unwelcome but it was true. Travis Black exuded a cynical kind of sexiness that was overwhelmingly magnetic and Beth felt her toes curl with the force of it.

‘We’re neighbours,’ he said lazily after a tense moment or two had crept by. ‘Albeit temporarily. It was the least I could do. I’d hope someone would behave the same if my sister found herself stranded.’

He had a sister? Ridiculous, because probably mad axemen and all manner of ne’er-do-wells had sisters, but it was reassuring somehow. Beth hid behind a neutral social smile which could have meant anything as she studied him. ‘How old is your sister?’ she asked.

‘Sandra? She had her thirtieth a few weeks ago. She’s probably still celebrating, knowing Sandra. She’s a party animal, to put it mildly.’

‘You don’t approve?’ There had been something in his voice which had suggested this, although nothing she could put her finger on. But she could be wrong; he was as complete stranger after all.

He shrugged muscled shoulders, expertly forking a mouthful of spaghetti into his mouth and swallowing before he said lazily, ‘She’s a grown woman with a life of her own.’

It wasn’t really an answer. Beth tried the Bolognese. It was absolutely delicious. As cooking was one of her least favourite things, she’d always had enormous respect for someone who could take ordinary ingredients and turn them into something special. Her food varied between being overdone, underdone or just plain inedible.

‘This is lovely,’ she said a little grudgingly. Travis was clearly one of those men who would be good at anything he set his mind to. Like Keith. The thought brought her up sharp and she slammed shut that particular little door in her head and hung the ‘do not enter’ sign back in place.

‘Thank you.’

There was a slightly quizzical note in his voice. Too late Beth realised her words probably didn’t add up with the expression on her face. She smoothed out the frown and forced a smile. ‘I can’t cook for toffee,’ she said lightly, ‘and I’m always madly jealous of anyone who can.’

He nodded but said nothing. Beth got the distinct impression he hadn’t believed her. She opened her mouth to say more and then shut it again, conscious that the old maxim of least said, soonest mended might ring true here. Anyway, she had never been a good liar. Unlike Keith.

Reaching for her wine, she drained the glass, her knuckles tight round the stem. Relax, relax, she told herself silently.

Travis refilled it silently before leaning back in his chair and saying, ‘Is it me or are you always this jumpy when you spend the night in a strange man’s house?’

She smiled, more naturally this time. ‘Are you strange?’ she asked, falling in with his mood.

‘It has been said in the past.’ He grinned and the sexiness went up a few notches.

Beth told herself she had not noticed. ‘Then I’ll just have to watch my step.’ She smiled again and then applied herself to the food. The sooner she finished the meal and could disappear upstairs to her room, the better. She didn’t want to do friendly or flirty or anything else.

She ate quickly, keeping her eyes on her plate. It was great of him to step into the breach and offer her a bed for the night, she told herself silently, but she’d have been more than content to pay for the damage had he forced the cottage door or a window. And she would have much preferred that. Ungrateful, maybe, but that was how she felt.

‘So are you renting the cottage for a full six months?’

They’d finished the food in silence and now, as Travis put down his fork and picked up his wineglass, Beth nerved herself to meet the cool grey gaze. She nodded. ‘That was the minimum period possible,’ she said shortly.

‘It’s a very lonely location.’

‘That’s what I liked about it.’ He was looking at her in an uncomfortably speculative way and after a tense moment or two she added, ‘I haven’t been well recently. I wanted a complete change for a while.’

‘You can’t get more complete than Herb Cottage.’

Beth made no reply to this, finishing her wine and standing up quickly. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll turn in now,’ she said awkwardly. ‘It was an awful journey earlier and I’m tired.’ She sounded boorish even to her own ears.

‘I can’t tempt you to some pudding?’ Travis said mildly. ‘There’s hazelnut pie or apple crumble.’

She shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’ She glanced at Harvey, who hadn’t moved so much as a paw. ‘Where do you want him to sleep?’

‘Oh, he’ll bed down with the girls,’ Travis said easily. ‘He seems to have settled in just fine.’

Too fine in her opinion. Considering Harvey had been protective to the point where it could have been a problem over the last few months, he now seemed to have abandoned her. Feeling ridiculously put out, Beth said tensely, ‘Well, thanks again. We’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible in the morning.’

‘There’s no rush.’

Oh, yes there was. He had stood up when she’d risen and he looked very big and very male. And attractive. Definitely attractive. Appalled by the direction her thoughts were taking, Beth told herself she was overtired. ‘Goodnight,’ she mumbled hastily and fled the kitchen before he even had a chance to reply.

CHAPTER TWO

THE BED WAS supremely comfortable, it was quiet and peaceful and she was as warm as toast. Beth turned over for the umpteenth time and asked herself why she couldn’t sleep. She was exhausted, there was no doubt about that, but her mind was buzzing. She groaned softly and buried her face in the pillow, getting more annoyed with herself with each passing moment.

She didn’t want to think about Keith and normally she could keep him very firmly at bay these days, so why was she raking up old wounds tonight? She’d thought she was past all that.

It was him—Travis Black. He reminded her of Keith. If she was being honest, however, she couldn’t think why. Certainly the two men were not alike physically. Keith was blond and blue-eyed with a warm boyish smile and a totally unthreatening masculinity which had nevertheless been very engaging. She had fallen head over heels in love with him the first moment they had met when he’d walked into the office. And he’d said he’d felt the same—had said he adored her, worshipped her.

Stupid. Beth sat up abruptly and ran her fingers through her rumpled hair. Really, really stupid. She should have known that a successful, handsome entrepreneur like Keith Wright would have more strings to his bow than a company of concert violinists. But she had trusted him. She had loved him and she’d trusted him, it was as simple as that. Biggest mistake of her life.

Come on, stop this. You’re over the worst, you don’t do post mortems on Keith any more. The admonition was there in her mind but tonight she couldn’t stem the memories flooding in.

They’d had a low-key wedding. Keith had wanted it that way and she had been so gloriously happy she’d have got married in sackcloth and ashes if he’d asked her to. As it was, she’d worn a powder-blue suit and large hat, and everyone had said she looked radiant.

Keith had whisked her off to the Bahamas for two weeks and they had returned to live in his modern apartment on the outskirts of London. The original plan had been to start looking for a house straight away, but as the weeks and months had slipped by it had never happened. Keith had said there was plenty of time and she had agreed with him. When they decided to start trying for a baby in the future, they would think about a house. Until then they were happy as they were.

And then one terrible night her sister and brother-in-law, Michael, had turned up at their apartment. White-faced and trembling from head to foot, Catherine had told her their beloved parents had been killed in a head-on collision. Two eighteen-year-old joyriders in a stolen car had veered across the motorway, causing a lorry to swerve to avoid them. In doing so, the lorry driver had lost control of his vehicle and her parents had ploughed into it. The lorry driver had cuts and bruises and the joyriders not a scratch. Neither had they any remorse. The case had attracted nationwide publicity, as much because one of the joyriders had a famous rock star brother as anything else.

A day or two after she and Keith and Catherine and Michael had been interviewed by the press on the steps of the courthouse at the finish of the trial, the joyriders having received the maximum sentence possible, she had returned home from work to find a young woman waiting outside the apartment.

The recent past, as she and Catherine had battled to come to terms with the sudden loss of their parents, had been bad enough, but nothing could have prepared her for what had followed. The young woman was Keith’s long-term partner. They had two children and had been living together for seven years. On the nights he had been ‘away’ on business he had, in fact, been on the other side of London with Anna. And there were girlfriends too, Anna had told her in a bitter rage. There always had been. Anna had turned a blind eye to Keith’s women because she loved him and he was the father of her little girls, but when she had seen him on the news with a wife… Only the day before he had left them all with hugs and kisses after spending the night in her arms. She’d had no idea he had actually married someone else.

Beth had stared at the distraught young woman as her world had come crashing down about her ears. She had believed Anna instantly. Later she’d questioned why and had come to the conclusion that as Anna had spoken a thousand and one little things had suddenly come into sharp focus, starting with their quiet no-fuss wedding twelve months before. And a couple of days before Christmas he had supposedly had to fly up to Scotland on business and had been unable to make it back to her before Boxing Day. Of course he had spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Anna and his children. Wheels within wheels and so cunning.

The more she and Anna had spoken, the more she had realised just how devious Keith had been. He had walked in on them some time later and if ever she’d needed confirmation that Anna was speaking the truth, the look of horror on Keith’s face was it.

She had walked out that same night and had never gone back except to pick up a few personal belongings with Catherine when Keith had been at work. She had refused to see or speak to him and once he had realised she was deadly serious he had not contested the divorce. But then he couldn’t have, not with her evidence.

Catherine and Michael had been wonderful, insisting she stay with them, but as Catherine was pregnant with their first child she had only stayed a short while. As soon as she was able she had found a small one-bedroom flat and bought it outright with her half of the inheritance from her parents’ estate. It had taken every last penny but she had needed to know she had her own home. The day after she’d moved in Catherine and Michael had turned up on the doorstep with Harvey, who had been nothing more than a bundle of fluff with outsize paws and a pink tongue.

‘A housewarming present,’ Catherine had announced. ‘And now I’ve left work I can look after him on the days when you’re in the office. You need company at night. OK?’

She had protested she didn’t want a dog and that it wouldn’t be practical, but she knew Catherine was worried to death about her and convinced she’d sink into a bog of despair once she was alone and it had been that which had persuaded her to take Harvey. As it was, it had turned out that Catherine was absolutely right. She didn’t know how she would have got through the last tortuous eighteen months without him. And there was something immensely reassuring in having Harvey with her at night and taking him to some of the more isolated sites she had to visit. He was so fiercely protective of her. He was also as good as gold with Catherine and the baby on the days she was confined to the office.

And so, with Harvey’s help, she had battled on until a few weeks ago when the combined pressure of grief over the loss of her parents, Keith’s betrayal and the breakdown of her marriage, plus the fact she’d been working too hard since the divorce had finally caught up with her. According to the doctor, she had suffered some kind of mini breakdown and needed a complete rest.

She had flatly refused to take the medication he’d prescribed but had acknowledged an extended holiday would be no bad thing. Somewhere totally quiet and isolated, she’d decided. A step out of time. Somewhere she could learn to sleep properly again and regain her appetite, where she didn’t have to see a soul if she didn’t want to. She’d put her requirements with several estate agents and when Herb Cottage had come to her attention she had known she’d found her little piece of English heaven.

English heaven! Beth snorted out loud, swinging her feet out of bed and walking into the en suite bathroom, where she poured herself a glass of water. It hadn’t seemed like heaven tonight, standing in the wind and cold. Once she was back in the cottage tomorrow she would go and get an extra key cut in the nearest town and hide it in the garden so there was never a repeat performance of this travesty. She still couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid.

She drank the water and climbed back into bed, leaving the bedside lamp on. This was a beautiful room. She glanced about her before sliding back under the duvet and determinedly shutting her eyes. It was a beautiful house altogether. Did Travis Black often bring his girlfriends here for a romantic weekend? No doubt he had plenty of women to choose from; he was that kind of man. They’d be queueing up in their droves.

In the shadowed darkness her lip curled. She bet he knew all the right things to say, like Keith had. Men always knew what to say to get what they wanted but they weren’t to be trusted. They said one thing and meant another. At least a certain type of man did, and very often ones who had an extra something that was hard to define but which was very real.

She turned over in bed, bringing the pillow over her head as though she could shut out her thoughts that way. And it was like that, virtually buried in the downy softness, that she finally went to sleep, but not before the first rays of morning were beginning to streak across a charcoal sky.

Beth was woken the next morning by a loud scratching at the bedroom door followed by a sharp knock. She sat bolt upright, her heart pounding and momentarily disorientated until in the next moment she remembered. She’d been locked out; this was Travis Black’s house. Her heart pounded even harder.

When the knock came again she pulled herself together, making sure the duvet was up round her chin—in spite of having slept in the jogging bottoms and T-shirt—as she called, ‘Come in.’

‘Hi.’ As the door opened she was conscious of Travis’s voice but it was Harvey jumping on to the bed that took all her attention. The big dog plonked his massive paws on her shoulders and proceeded to lick her face anxiously in spite of her protests. When she finally managed to push him away it was to see Travis at the side of the bed with a tray. His voice amused, he said, ‘Harvey’s been whining and pacing the kitchen for the last hour. I think he thought you’d run off and left him.’

Great. After cheerfully waving her off to goodness knew where the night before, Harvey had finally remembered his obligations at a time when her hair looked like a bird’s nest and her face hadn’t woken up. Of course it wouldn’t have mattered if it had just been Harvey finding her but he’d had to go and bring Travis Black too! Talk about adding insult to injury.

Beth nerved herself to glance at Travis. He was wearing jeans and an open-necked cream shirt. He was freshly shaved and the black hair was still damp from the shower. Narrow-waisted and lean-hipped with shoulders broad enough for even the most picky female, his aura of maleness was overwhelming. She felt at such a disadvantage that speech seemed to have deserted her. She swallowed hard, wishing she was a natural wit.

Travis didn’t seem to have noticed. Or maybe he thought she was always this gormless. Beth tried to think of something to say and failed miserably.

‘I wasn’t sure if you took tea or coffee first thing.’ Travis nodded to the contents of the tray. There was a mug of both along with sugar, milk and a small plate of plain biscuits. ‘Breakfast will be ready in half an hour, OK?’

‘Oh, please, don’t go to any trouble. I’ll just phone the agent guy if you give me his number and get out of your hair. I’ve imposed on you enough.’ Aware she was babbling, Beth came to an abrupt halt. From not getting started, now she couldn’t stop. He must be wondering what he’d taken on.

Deep grey eyes surveyed her unblinkingly. ‘I’ve already talked to John and he’s meeting us at the cottage at eleven. Hash browns or sauté potatoes with your cooked breakfast?’

‘What?’ He was close enough for her to scent his male warmth and the faintest tang of delicious aftershave. It was doing crazy things to her hormones. ‘Oh, hash browns, please,’ she managed weakly. Control. This was all about control.

He nodded, placing the tray on the bedside cabinet before walking to the door. Harvey trotted along with him. Clearly the big dog had decided that as she was alive and well he’d rather get back to his canine companions while the going was good.

Once the door had closed behind the pair of them, Beth leapt out of bed and inspected her reflection in the bathroom mirror. She groaned. The man was forever destined to see her looking as though she had been pulled through a hedge backwards.

Not that it mattered, she told herself firmly in the next moment. Of course it didn’t. Travis Black was nothing to her and after today she would probably only catch a glimpse of his car, if anything, as it passed in the lane outside Herb Cottage. It was just that in spite of her life being a shambles she still had her self-respect and pride in her appearance.

She grimaced at the face in the mirror and turned away, walking back into the bedroom and drinking her coffee at the bedroom window. The room was situated at the back of the house and the view outside was tremendous. The grounds belonging to Travis were extensive and well cared for, smooth green lawns and mature trees and shrubs competing with large flowerbeds which were a riot of colour in the bright sunlight. But beyond the dry stone wall which bordered the property there was a rolling vista of trees, fields and hedges which stretched for miles, hills and valleys losing their separate identity as they stretched into infinity.

‘Gorgeous.’ Beth breathed out the word, her eyes focusing on a little flock of long-tailed tits flitting delicately in the branches of one of the beech trees close to the house. There was all the peace and tranquillity you could ever wish for. Which made it all the more surprising somehow that Travis lived here, albeit only part-time. He gave the impression of being a man who would always want to keep his finger on the pulse and be where the action was.

And then she frowned to herself. She didn’t usually make assumptions about people and yet she couldn’t seem to stop where Travis was concerned. Mentally shaking the unsettling feeling away, she finished the coffee and went into the bathroom for a shower. She’d feel better when she looked human again.

Twenty minutes later she made her way downstairs, her hair a shining curtain either side of her face and smelling of apple blossom from the shampoo she’d found in the bathroom cabinet. Without any perfume or even so much as a lip gloss in the way of make-up, it was the best she could do, she thought ruefully. In fact she felt remarkably bohemian with bare feet and a bare face, not to mention her lack of under-clothes under the jogging bottoms and T-shirt. She always dressed very smartly for work, even when she was going on site—donning wellington boots and the big shapeless cagoule she kept in the car, she made sure the clothes beneath were immaculate.

Power dressing, Keith had used to call it. Not exactly in a nasty way but with some amusement. She had countered this by insisting that in the male dominated world of her profession the image she projected was all important. Her blonde hair, blue eyes and feminine curves were enough to cause some men to doubt her brain power—she wasn’t going to dress girly-girly to give them more ammunition. Not that they ever made the same mistake twice, she thought grimly. Not by the time she’d finished with them.

In a repeat of the night before, Travis was standing at the stove as she entered the kitchen, the three dogs spread out at his feet. Beth forced her voice into bright and breezy mode. ‘That smells lovely.’

He smiled. Beth wondered why it was that when some men smiled they just smiled, and with others it was like pow. Travis’s smile was a definite pow plus.

‘I thought we’d eat in here again, if that’s OK?’ he said easily. ‘I do actually have a dining room, believe it or not, but this is more…relaxed.’

Was that another way of saying this was in no way, shape or form anything remotely resembling a date and she mustn’t get the wrong idea about his hospitality? Beth sat down at the kitchen table. If so, that suited her just fine. ‘With a kitchen as nice as this one I should think you eat in here all the time,’ she said carefully. ‘I would.’

‘Quite a bit,’ he said, forking bacon into a dish.

There was already a coffee-pot, orange juice, toast and preserves on the table. Now Travis deftly placed dishes containing scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon, fried tomatoes, hash browns and various other items of food alongside them. Beth thought there was enough to feed an army. She gazed at it in alarm.

‘Help yourself.’ He joined her at the table and immediately her senses tingled at his nearness. Which was annoying, really annoying. Especially as he was totally laid-back.

‘Thanks.’ For the last few months she hadn’t had anything of an appetite and had had to force herself to eat, often as not. It was with some surprise that she suddenly found she was quite hungry. She piled up her plate and began eating.

The food tasted as good as it looked. The sausages and bacon were crisp where they should be crisp but juicy where they needed to be. The rest of the breakfast was also perfect.

Beth had just popped the last morsel of egg in her mouth and leant back in her chair, feeling utterly replete, when she became aware that Travis was staring at her with unconcealed fascination. But not the ‘I fancy you like mad’ kind as his words informed her when he said, ‘For such a tiny little thing you can certainly pack it away when you want to, can’t you?’

She wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or an insult. Warily she said, ‘It must be the country air; I don’t usually eat much, actually. Little and often suits me best.’

‘It wasn’t a criticism.’

His smoky voice held amusement and she felt herself flush. ‘I didn’t think it was.’ She met the grey gaze head-on.

‘No?’ His brows rose mockingly.

‘No.’ It was very firm. Too firm?

‘Good.’ He clearly didn’t believe her. ‘I can’t stand women who nibble on a lettuce leaf all day, as it happens,’ he said lazily, standing and beginning to clear the empty dishes into the dishwasher. ‘Incredibly irritating.’

I bet they’re the sort you date, though, Beth thought sourly. Gorgeous model types who would look good in anything. He turned and caught the look on her face before she could wipe it away. He seemed to have a talent for catching her unawares.

Stopping what he was doing, he leant back against the worktop and folded his arms. ‘You don’t like me,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Why is that, Beth?’

She could feel her ears burning. Mortified, she mumbled, ‘I don’t know you, so how could I dislike you? And you’ve been very kind, taking me and Harvey in, feeding us and everything.’

He made a cutting motion with his hand but his voice was still contemplative rather than concerned when he said, ‘I thought last night you were nervous because of the position you were in and I could understand that. A stranger, the two of us alone here…’ The grey eyes wandered over her hot face.

In spite of her acute discomfort, Beth registered that eyelashes the length and thickness of his were wasted on a man.

‘But it’s not that, is it? It’s me. You don’t like me.’

He didn’t sound at all bothered. Pique added itself to embarrassment. ‘As I said, I don’t know you.’

He reached for a dish on the table in which three sausages remained. Giving one to each of the three dogs, he placed the empty container in the dishwasher before he said, ‘You don’t lie very well, Beth Marton.’

‘I’m not a man, am I?’ It was out before she even had time to think. Damn, damn, damn. She flushed hotly.

The piercing gaze homed in. There was an ear-splitting moment of silence before he said, very quietly, ‘I see.’

She wanted to run but she kept her voice low as she stared at him defiantly. ‘What does that mean?’

He took up the challenge immediately. ‘It’s the answer to why a young woman with your looks and brains is burying herself in the back of beyond for a while,’ he said calmly.

Arrogant, self-opinionated, supercilious swine. ‘You know nothing about me, Mr Black, so don’t pretend you do.’

‘The name’s Travis,’ he said mildly, glancing at his watch before adding, ‘And we’d better be making tracks if we’re going to meet John. I’ve dug out a pair of old flip-flops my sister left here some time ago, by the way. I presume you don’t want to wade through mud if you don’t have to?’

It was through gritted teeth that she said, ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re most welcome.’ He bowed his head, his eyes on her.

He was enjoying this. She just knew he was enjoying the whole situation. Beth rose with what she hoped was a good deal of dignity. ‘I’ll go and fetch my things from upstairs.’ She paused. Much as she hated to ask, she couldn’t very well let her pyjamas and slippers drip all over his carpet. ‘Do you have a carrier bag I can use?’ she added tightly. ‘I left my clothes in soak last night.’

‘Very wise.’ He reached into a cupboard and fetched out a bag. ‘And the flip-flops are by the front door.’

She nodded and then sailed out of the room with her nose in the air. Once in her bedroom, she closed the door and leaned against it, shutting her eyes for a moment. All this because she had made the mistake of following Harvey outside to make sure he was all right. She must have been mad. If ever a dog could look after himself, Harvey could.

Levering herself upright, she marched into the bathroom and retrieved her sodden pyjamas and slippers from the basin. They still carried a faint whiff of something unmentionable.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she told herself out loud. ‘Just keep calm and ignore anything he might say. In a little while you’ll be back in the cottage and you need never see Travis Black again in the whole of your life.’

And that couldn’t happen a moment too soon as far as she was concerned. He might have rescued her—in a fashion—and in a way she supposed he was something of a good Samaritan, albeit a slightly sarcastic and head-on challenging one, but he was right. She didn’t like him. He was too self-assured, too high-handed, and that amusement with which he seemed to view her was downright insulting.

She was a capable and experienced professional woman who held down a good job and took care of herself just fine. Well, usually. Admittedly last night had been something of a hiccup but everyone had those now and again. He seemed to think she was an empty airhead.

She stuffed her wet things into the bag, frowning fiercely. And now she had to face this John Turner, who undoubtedly would also think she was a dizzy female who had lost the sense she was born with. Life was so unfair sometimes…

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