The Bachelor's Bargain. Jessica Steele

this is legal,’ he assured her. Then, evenly, he enquired, ‘How would you like to be my steady girlfriend for a year?’

      Merren stared at him. She wasn’t sure that her jaw didn’t drop. ‘You’re not serious?’

      ‘I promise you I am.’

      ‘But—but—we don’t even know each other!’ she protested.

      ‘We don’t have to—it will be an in-name-only courtship.’

      ‘For your mother’s sake—er—or rather, yours?’

      ‘Don’t forget about my sister being my mother’s trusty lieutenant.’

      Merren didn’t like it. ‘You’d deceive them, carry on deceiving them? For a year?’

      ‘Until Piers gets back and they can turn their attentions on him.’

      She still didn’t like it. ‘Can’t you just explain that you don’t want their attention? That you’re happy as you are?’

      ‘Do you think I haven’t tried?’

      ‘It didn’t work?’

      ‘Three weeks at most is the longest they’ve backed off. You’ve a family yourself. You know the pressure that sometimes brings.’ Didn’t she just! If it wasn’t for Robert and that two thousand pounds he needed she wouldn’t be in this mess. ‘Friends, acquaintances, they understand the word “No”; families just don’t recognise it. Unfortunately, where you can tell friends or acquaintances where to go, if you’re so minded, some family members—who take liberties friends wouldn’t dream of entertaining—cannot be told.’

      ‘But have to be shown?’ Merren queried.

      ‘Exactly.’

      Merren still didn’t like it any better. But she owed him. ‘What would I have to do?’ she asked reluctantly.

      ‘Probably nothing at all,’ Jarad answered. ‘But if for the next twelve months you could be “on call”, as it were, it should resolve matters to everyone’s satisfaction.’

      ‘By “on call” you mean, let you have my phone number, and be available to drive here the moment you ring—that sort of thing?’

      ‘I doubt very much that I’ll have to bother you,’ Jarad commented easily. ‘Though, with your permission, I’d like to drop your name into the conversation whenever I feel it appropriate. My mother seldom calls to see me—which is why today’s visit has such ominous overtones. Ye gods, my brother only left the country a couple of days ago!’

      ‘You—um—don’t think you’re being just a little unfair to your mother and sister—fooling them…?’

      ‘Unfair! Was it fair of them to poke their matrimonially-minded noses in, and then to spoil what is a very enjoyable lifestyle?’

      ‘Life’s a toad!’ she commiserated, though with not much sympathy. But seriously needed to recap. ‘You’re saying, Mr Montgomery, that all I have to do to repay that loan is to be ready to shoot over here to your home occasionally when the call comes?’

      ‘The situation may never arise, as I’ve said. But that’s about it.’

      ‘Two thousand pounds seems a lot of money to pay for something that may never arise,’ her innate honesty compelled her to point out.

      Steady grey eyes pinned her deeply blue ones. ‘Call it a retainer,’ he suggested, and before she could comment on that, he added, ‘Just in case, you’d better recite the name “Jarad” ten times a day.’

      Merren laughed. She guessed it wouldn’t look good were she to dash ‘on call’ to see him, to greet him as ‘Mr Montgomery’ in front of his mother. ‘I’ll practise,’ she promised, and, unable to think of anything else they might need to discuss, she got to her feet.

      Jarad went to the front door with her. But before he opened it he looked down at her as they stood there, and told her, ‘I think you and I are going to fare very well together, Merren Shepherd.’ Then he gave a sigh, ‘Such a pity—I may never need to see you again.’

      Merren laughed again. He seemed to have that effect on her—or was it just that she was relieved that she wasn’t going to have to work every night and all weekends? ‘We can only hope,’ she grinned, and went home still smiling.

      When she thought over all that had been said, as she did on that drive home, Merren realised that, when it came to it, even though it was pretty obvious that she’d have to drop everything and dash if his phone call came—a two-thousand-pound retainer wasn’t half bad.

      She pulled up at her home, fancying that she could see a glimmer of a silver lining behind her dark cloud.