The Engagement Deal Read Free Page B

He’d been enjoying his single state in the back of a limousine with a young actress barely wearing a stunning outfit.
    Annoyance flickered in his eyes as he bent his dark head in acknowledgement of her sly words. ‘The awards ceremony debacle,’ he said grimly. ‘If I weren’t a gentleman, I’d say the same thing to you that I did to that photographer. For your information, that stunt was a put-up job.’ He ground his teeth as the little witch actually giggled.
    ‘Of course it was,’ she soothed. ‘Couldn’t you have asked—what was her name?—to help you out?’ Holly bit her trembling lower lip. ‘She looked to be a very obliging sort of girl,’ she choked.
    ‘No, I couldn’t!’ he bellowed. ‘I never intended to actually produce a woman. I thought Tara would accept it when I told her I’d fallen in love.’ He looked deeply frustrated by her lack of co-operation.
    ‘You mean she doesn’t take what you say at face value? How strange,’ Holly puzzled.
    ‘It just so happens I don’t lie to Tara.’
    Holly lifted her brows expressively.
    ‘Normally,’ he ground out, with an expression which suggested that throttling his interrogator would offer him the greatest satisfaction. ‘I don’t lie, but this is for her own good.’
    ‘Not to mention yours.’
    ‘I said I’d produce this woman thinking Rowena would step into the breach. That was before she vanished off the face of the earth. Now…Now I’ve got about—’ he looked down at his watch ‘—about thirty minutes to find a stand-in lover.’
    ‘I’d have thought there would have been a whole flock of lovelies gagging to help you out.’
    He raised guileless blue eyes to her face and mournfully nodded his agreement. ‘The problem is,’ he confided in a slow languid drawl that, had she known it, was pitched deliberately to aggravate her, ‘they wouldn’t all be as happy as Rowena to hand back the ring in the morning. I could well be jumping from the frying-pan into the fire.’
    ‘God, it must be tough being irresistible!’ Teeth clenched, she sighed sympathetically.
    Niall gave her a long thoughtful look. ‘I’d ask you to step into the breach…’ He paused politely while she made a rude derogatory noise in her throat. ‘But I get the impression you don’t like me. Besides, you’re not exactly…’ With a pained expression he tactfully averted his eyes from her colourful striped pyjamas.
    ‘Not exactly what?’ she jumped in, bristling with suspicion. As if she needed to ask! He was implying, and not very subtly, that nobody would believe a man like him would want to marry a girl like her.
    Holly’s firm chin went up to an aggressive angle. She might not be every man’s first choice, but to be deemed unworthy even to be the last choice of a desperate man…! Well, this wasn’t the same little girl who had been reduced to abject misery by a careless cruel comment, and Niall Wesley was about to find that out. She’d show him!
    ‘Not exactly dressed for the occasion.’
    He was awfully glad he had dredged up a memory of Rowena saying that the best way to make her sister do anything was to tell her not to! ‘She’s so pig-headed it’s unbelievable!’ Rowena had informed him with affectionate irritation. She hadn’t mentioned the size sixteen chip on Holly’s size eight shoulder, though!
    Holly wasn’t going to let him wriggle out of this that easily. If he thought she wasn’t good enough to be seen with him, he’d have to come out and say so!
    ‘I’ve got other clothes and some people,’ she taunted, ‘think I scrub up quite well.’
    ‘I’m sure they do,’ he soothed smoothly. The gleam in his eyes made Holly frown as she suddenly felt less certain of what she was doing. ‘Shouldn’t you hurry?’
    ‘Hurry?’
    ‘If we’re going to get to dinner on time.’
    Holly’s mouth opened and she blinked. ‘Why would I want to help you? I didn’t say I’d—’
    ‘Well, if you don’t think you’re up to