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‘So Lucas Patrick is a friend of yours…?’
‘Actually I’ve never met the man in my life,’ she admitted. ‘Now if—’
‘You’re a fan, then?’ he theorised, talking across her. ‘If you leave your address, perhaps he’ll send you an autograph.’
‘Do I look stupid enough to give a total stranger my address?’ she demanded.’
The dark, satanically slanted brows lifted, but Megan had no more intention of responding to the gesture than she did the quivery demands of her oversensitive tummy muscles.
‘And I don’t want his damned autograph,’ she grunted, blushing darkly.
‘Then you don’t like his books?’
‘I’ve read some of his earlier ones, I can see why he’s popular,’ she observed diplomatically.
‘But not with you?’ he suggested shrewdly.
‘I think he’s slightly overrated.’ Unfairly she vented her antagonism towards this man on the absent and talented author.
She expelled a silent breath of relief as he finally moved aside to let her pass. As she did so she lifted her head as a thought occurred to her. ‘Have you actually met Lucas Patrick?’
‘In passing.’
Megan’s eyes widened. He didn’t seem to appreciate this put him in a pretty unique category. ‘Really—! And how did he seem?’
‘Seem?’
‘What was he like?’
‘He seemed a pretty ordinary sort of guy to me,’ he divulged disappointingly.
‘Then is he…what does he look like?’ She shook her head. ‘No, on second thoughts, don’t tell me, leave me with my illusions—though if you happened to nod when I said balding, or paunchy, that wouldn’t be totally out of order, would it?’
‘I thought your uncle was his editor?’
‘He is, but Uncle Malcolm’s lips are sealed when it comes to Lucas Patrick,’ she admitted regretfully.
‘And you’re curious…?’
A grin of pure mischief spread across Megan’s face. ‘A girl always likes to know ahead of time what her future husband looks like.’
‘Future husband…?’
The look of horror etched on his dark, dramatically perfect face could not have been more heartfelt had she just announced her intention to marry him. Megan loosed a gurgle of laughter. ‘A joke,’ she placated.
‘He might not think so,’ the tall stranger observed as he scanned her amused face.
‘Then he has no sense of humour,’ Megan proclaimed.
‘You still haven’t said what brought you here…’
Halfway to the door, Megan turned back at the sound of his voice. Why not? the reckless voice in her head suggested. You’re never going to see the man again. Maybe there was something in that old maxim that it was easier to discuss things with a stranger.
‘My mother wants me to be happy.’ She began to experience a familiar tightness in her chest and she sat down cautiously on the arm of a chair.
‘And that’s a problem?’ Luc watched her fumble in her bag.
‘She believes no woman is complete without a man.’
‘And you don’t have one.’
Megan’s chin went up. ‘I don’t want one,’ she rebutted firmly. Her fingers closed over the inhaler she never went out without and she gave a sigh of relief. ‘At regular intervals she tries to set me up with someone she imagines…’
‘Is good breeding stock…’ came the straight-faced suggestion.
Megan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Will make me happy,’ she corrected and raised the inhaler to her mouth. The relief was almost immediate. ‘This is why I avoid cats,’ she said, anticipating his question.
‘You have asthma?’ he queried, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
‘A little,’ she admitted. She went to rise but a large hand fell on her shoulder, anchoring her to the spot. Her eyes slid from his brown fingers to his face.
‘Take a minute to get your breath,’ he suggested, actually it was more than a suggestion, it was a quiet command.
Normally Megan didn’t respond well to commands but on this occasion she found herself strangely willing to let it pass. His concern, even though unnecessary was oddly comforting.
‘Can I get you anything? A glass of water?’
She nodded; her throat felt oddly achy and constricted.
Without a further comment he left and returned with a glass of water. He stood there, arms folded across his chest while she drank. Megan was very conscious of his silent presence. He wasn’t the sort of man you could forget was there.
‘Thank you,’ she said politely, handing back the empty glass. Their fingers touched briefly during the exchange; the contact did uncomfortable things to Megan’s pulse.
‘Can I call anyone for you?’
‘Gracious, no!’ Very conscious of her warm cheeks, she forced a smile but didn’t meet his eyes. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Despite a matchmaking mother.’
The comment brought her head up. ‘I’ve tried everything to put her off,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Nothing works.’
Head tilted a little to one side, a frown deepening the line between his flyaway brows, he scanned her face. ‘What are you…thirty…?’
The almost-spot-on estimate disconcerted her; she had enough female vanity to feel peeved.
‘Sorry, have I touched a nerve?’
Megan glared at him. ‘No, you haven’t,’ she denied angrily. ‘I have no problem with being thirty…actually, almost thirty.’
‘Good for you,’ he interposed with silken gravity. ‘Don’t you think at almost thirty it’s time you told your mother to mind her own business?’
Megan coloured angrily. He made it sound so simple, but then it probably was, if you had no problem trampling all over the feelings of people you loved. ‘Oh, why didn’t I think of that? Of course, it might be because I don’t want to hurt my mother.’
His shoulders lifted in a disdainful shrug. ‘Well, if you don’t mind people running your life…?’
‘My mother doesn’t run my life!’ she flared.
‘No?’
Megan clenched her teeth. ‘No, she doesn’t. She has had a tough time the last few years,’ she informed him, swallowing past the emotional lump in her throat. ‘She isn’t some cold control freak, she is just a caring mum who wants to see her daughter happy and settled.’ She dragged a frustrated hand through her hair and gave a dejected sigh. ‘Unfortunately happy and settled for her equates with a man and marriage, which is why I had this idea…a sort of line-of-least-resistance thing.’
Luc watched as she gazed abstractedly into the distance, her smooth brow furrowed.
‘Least resistance…?’ he probed softly.
She nodded. ‘If I could get one of the prospective grooms to pretend to be smitten, Mum would be happy and leave me to get on with more important things.’
Luc’s deep-set eyes widened slightly as comprehension struck home. ‘And what do you consider important?’
‘My job.’
‘You can’t live and breathe your job.’
‘My work is very demanding; it leaves no time for relationships. ’
‘So you’re married to your career.’
She frowned; he made her sound freaky. ‘I’ve nothing against marriage, but I don’t think I’ll ever find a man who is willing to take what little I would have to give.’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of men.’
‘I’m a pragmatist.’
‘You think you were being pragmatic when you came here to ask Lucas Patrick to…pretend to be smitten…?’
A mortified flush mounted Megan’s cheeks—when he said it, it sounded even more off the wall. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘But that’s what you came here for?’
‘It’s not as crazy as it sounds.’
‘Did I say it was crazy? I’m just wondering…what was going to be in it for him?’
CHAPTER THREE
MEGAN frowned. ‘In it…?’
‘As in what would he get out of it?’ Luc looked into her bewildered face and laughed. ‘You thought he’d do it out of the goodness of his heart.’ His mobile lips lifted cynically at the corners. ‘You really never have met Lucas Patrick, have you?’
‘And unlike you I’d prefer not to bad-mouth him in his absence.’
For some reason her angry reproach caused him to laugh. It was a deep, warm, uninhibited sound that made Megan’s pulse rate quicken. ‘Just bad-mouth his books…?’
She wrenched her appreciative stare from the mesh of fine lines around his smiling grey eyes and frowned. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ she warned him.
The stern warning brought Luc’s attention to her lips; she was attempting to compress them into a thin, disapproving line. As he contemplated the soft, cushiony contours it took considerable self-discipline to prevent his thoughts diverting into a carnal direction.
‘And I’m sure Mr Patrick has survived worse than anything I might say about him. And actually,’ she added, ‘I happen to think that he’s quite a talented writer.’
‘But you were willing to overlook his dubious literary talent in the interests of a quiet life?’ he questioned.
The soft charge brought a guilty flush to her cheeks. She squared her shoulders and sighed. ‘All right, I admit it was a pretty daft idea, but as the man isn’t here it’s fairly academic, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe…’
‘There’s no maybe about it,’ she rebutted morosely.
‘Would I be right in assuming that nobody at this house party, including your mother, has ever met Lucas Patrick…?’
‘Well, no, since Uncle Mal won’t be coming I don’t suppose…but I don’t see what that has to do with anything, Mr…what is your name anyhow?’ The weirdness of discussing such personal things with a total stranger whose name she didn’t even know suddenly struck Megan forcibly.
A slow, wolfish grin split the nameless stranger’s lean, dark face, revealing a set of white even teeth and causing her stomach to flip. Not only had she lost all control over what came out of her mouth, she had lost control of her nervous system as well!
‘To cut down on confusion, perhaps it’s better if you just call me Lucas…?’ he suggested smoothly.
‘What…? Megan’s impatient expression vanished as her eyes snapped open to their fullest extent. God, he couldn’t be saying what she thought he was…could he…?
She scanned his face with suspicion. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting that you need a face to fit your fantasy lover.’ He adopted an expression of enquiry. ‘Is there anything wrong with this one?’ His fluid gesture indicated his own lean face.
Megan looked at the golden toned skin stretched across the perfect arrangement of strong angles and intriguing hollows and went perfectly pale.
‘You’re insane.’ Despite her attitude of total conviction, there was a small voice in her head that said it could just work…
‘I’m assuming you weren’t expecting Lucas Patrick to actually marry you…?’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ she breathed faintly. Like a hypnotised rabbit, she couldn’t take her eyes off his face. That voice in her head was getting louder.
‘Did you have a time factor in mind…?’ When she looked back at him blankly he spelt it out. ‘How long did you imagine this fake romance had to last? Six months or so?’
‘I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.’
His disturbing eyes glittering from beneath the sweep of long, curling ebony lashes, he slanted her a sardonic look.
‘Oh, I guess so,’ she conceded crossly. ‘If you’re suggesting anyone is going to believe you’re a famous author…’ She gave a forced laugh.
‘Nobody has the faintest idea what Lucas Patrick looks like.’
