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.’
‘They may not know what he looks like—’ she deliberately trailed her eyes along the long, lean lines of his athletic frame; about midway she lost her scornful air ‘—but I think they might know what he doesn’t look like,’ she finished hoarsely.
His self-satisfied air intensified as he surveyed her heated cheeks. ‘If I had claimed to be him when you walked in you’d have been none the wiser.’
‘Nonsense! Of course I would,’ she instantly rebutted indignantly. ‘What do you take me for?’
A look she couldn’t quite decipher flickered at the back of his steely, dark-lashed eyes. ‘Someone who thinks they can tell, just by looking at a person, who he is…or should I say what he does? The two seem to be the same thing as far as you’re concerned.’
‘Of course I can’t.’
‘And neither can anyone else. The fact is you assumed I was the hired help because of the way I’m dressed. If I came out of the bedroom with a stethoscope around my neck you’d have assumed I was a doctor. It’s all about props.’
‘This is all academic…I’m not going to invite a total stranger into my home.’
‘Afraid I’ll steal the silver?’
She shook her head and refused to respond to this taunt. ‘This isn’t going to happen. Even if you did carry it off…’
‘I will,’ he promised.
His smug smile made her frown. ‘Even if you did my mother is never going to believe I’m attracted to you.’ Then she would be wrong wouldn’t