Princes of the Outback Bundle (28 page)

He hadn’t counted on being away long. He hadn’t counted on the decision of which stone, which setting, which ring, proving so damn difficult. He’d chosen jewelry for women on countless occasions, but this was different. He wanted it to be special. Unique. A gift she would accept from him without the arguments of yesterday over the clothes.

In the end he couldn’t decide, and that sat uneasily on his shoulders as he made the return trip. So did an unfamiliar tension over the gift he
had
bought—a diamond necklace he’d selected because he liked the idea of giving her everything pretty and missing from her hard and frugal life. Because he liked the idea of sliding the cool stones around her neck while she lay naked and sleeping in her bed. Anticipation settled the nervous churn in his belly as he thought about stripping off and slipping into her bed and spending the rest of the day warming them up.

When he opened the door to an empty suite, the swoop of disappointment was intense. But as he walked from room to room looking for a note—a note she apparently hadn’t left—his mood shifted from disappointment to discontent. Logic suggested she’d gone for a walk, maybe even looking for him, and that she would be back soon.

He gave her ten minutes.

Then he called the floor concierge and discovered that, yes, she had gone out. But only after searching out Bridget with a request to return the clothes. That rankled. So did her continuing absence past midday, especially when his speculation over her whereabouts turned to Drew Samuels.

Prowling the sitting room, he tossed up whether to call
and ask the cowboy if he’d happened to have seen his wife today. And that turned his mood downright dirty. Not a good time for her to return, but that’s when the door opened.

She didn’t see him until she’d closed it behind her and crossed the entry foyer. Then she came to an abrupt halt, eyes wide with surprise when they lit on his still figure across the room. If he’d thought the sight of her, home and obviously unharmed, would ease the moody tension in his gut, then he’d been wrong. Dead wrong.

“Bridget said you were looking for me earlier,” she said, recovering quickly, “but I thought you’d have gone out again by now.”

He could have asked why the hell she’d have thought that, but he was too busy taking in her outfit.
Her
jeans,
her
shirt. A couple of generic plastic bags hung from her hand and slapped softly against her leg as she skirted the dining table into the sitting area.

“You saw Bridget? Was that to check if she’d returned the clothes I bought for you?”

Her eyes narrowed a fraction, probably in response to the frosty tone of his voice. “She saw me by chance, actually. Down in the lobby. Is something the matter?”

Where did he start?
Rafe wasn’t used to feeling so out of sorts, so close to losing his cool. So rattled by the irrationality of his mood. She was back, right? She’d come to no harm. So, why couldn’t he just leave it? Why couldn’t he concede that nothing was wrong except his pride over the clothes issue.

And, okay, some justifiable concern over her absence.

“I didn’t know where you were,” he said tightly. “I’ve been cooling my heels here, waiting for you to get back.”

“I thought you’d be a while dealing with your business.”

“My business?”

She paused behind one of the crimson velvet sofas. A wary frown shadowed her eyes as they connected with his. “I as
sumed that’s where you went this morning. To do whatever business brought you here to Vegas.”

“I did that last night, Catriona.” His gaze dropped to her hand—the
naked
hand—resting on the back of the sofa. He felt every muscle bunch with tension. “Where’s your ring?”

“My hands are swollen. I had to take it off.”

Rafe couldn’t argue with that. He didn’t like himself for wanting to argue, for wanting some kind of aggression that was completely foreign and over the top. And he was so caught up in the confusion of his own responses that it took him a long moment to twig to her stillness. To the cooling narrowness of her gaze.

“Was I your business in Vegas, then?” she asked slowly. But she didn’t wait for an answer. She gave a slight shake of her head, as if she should have known all along. “All that rubbish about needing to pay me back for getting you out of that plane and taking you in—”

“That wasn’t rubbish, Catriona.”

“But you brought me here to Vegas meaning to marry me? That was your business?”

“If you put it like that…” Rafe shrugged. “Yes.”

“Then don’t you think we should have been a little more businesslike? Don’t you think we should have ironed a few things out
before
we swapped wedding rings?”

“Things?”

“Terms. Conditions.”

“I thought we agreed to our terms last night. I’ll pay off your debts. You’ll have my baby.”

“That’s it?” Her voice rose on a note of disbelief. “Don’t you think that’s a bit sketchy on detail?”

“What do you need to know, Catriona? I’ll pay you a monthly allowance, plus wages for a nanny and whatever help you need to run your station.”

“Help? What help?”

“A stationhand. Any extra—”

“I don’t need a stationhand. I can do my own work. I like it that way!”

“I’m sure you do.” Eyes narrowed, Rafe met her mulish expression with unflinching directness. “But what about when you’re pregnant? When your belly is way out here, and you can’t lift a bale of hay or ride a horse. What about when you’re feeding the baby and—”

“Okay, I get your point,” she cut in, her voice as tight as hay wire. “But that’s a case of
if
I get pregnant.
If
I have a baby.”

“That’s why I married you.”

“In case I’d forgotten?”

Her eyes glittered with more than irritation, more than mulish pride, but in his current mood that’s all Rafe wanted to see. “I just wanted to make sure,” he drawled, “that we’d got that condition clear.”

“Hard not to, given last night.”

“Are you complaining?” he asked, deadly soft. “Because I didn’t hear you complaining last night. I heard you moaning. I heard—”

“I didn’t mean your sexual prowess. I wouldn’t be fooling anyone if I complained about that!”

Rafe’s gaze narrowed. “Now, why doesn’t that sound like a compliment?”

“I’m sure you’ve heard every compliment I could come up with a hundred times before.”

“How do you figure that, Catriona?”

“I figure that because you’ve likely slept with half the women in Sydney!”

“That many? Just as well I did the blood tests, then!”

Their gazes clashed, blazing with the anger of their exchange and with the knowledge of all they’d shared in the night. “Just as well I’m a sucker,” Cat all but hissed after that searing second, “and took your word for it!”

Something glinted hard and sharp in his eyes. Anger? Hurt? Disbelief? Before she could pin it down, he turned and
stalked away. He stopped by the piano, the taut lines of his body reflected in the highly polished wood. Then he hit a couple of keys, a delicate tinkling of sound at odds with the stark atmosphere.

At odds with the harsh note of laughter that escaped his throat as he turned back to face her. “Do you really think I’d have lied to you about that?”

Cat shook her head. Expelled a long breath and with it a piece of her white-hot outrage. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was uncalled for. I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me, Catriona. You disappointed me.”

She deserved that. She’d disappointed herself by giving in to the temptation to read up on him on the Internet. And she’d disappointed herself again, just now, by allowing her emotions to derail and overturn a discussion that deserved better.

Inhaling deeply, she concentrated on steadying the churn in her stomach. The uneasy knowledge that she might not be able to get this discussion back on track. But she had to try.

“You mentioned a nanny. For after—
if
I have a baby. Does that mean the baby will live with me?”

“If that’s what you want. Yes.”

“Of course that’s what I want,” she said quickly. “But what about you? You’re the one who needs the baby. Won’t you want to raise your child as a Carlisle? Won’t you want to—”

“I’m having this baby because I have to, Catriona, not because I see myself as father material.”

“You won’t want to be part of his upbringing?” Cat’s heart was beating hard. “You don’t want custody?”

“While we’re married, that won’t be an issue.”

While they were married—what did he mean by that?
Cat moistened her dry mouth. “What kind of marriage are we talking about?”

“The kind where we both keep our independence. That’s what you want, right?”

“Yes,” she agreed cautiously. “But won’t that make it a lit
tle hard to have that baby? If I’m living at Corroboree and you’re in Sydney?”

“That’s the arrangement after we conceive.”

Her heart skittered with a panicky sense of foreboding. “And until then…? You can’t expect me to live with you in Sydney.”

“Why not?”

Why not?
Why not?
“I hate the city. It makes me crazy.” Agitated, she lifted her arms, shopping bags and all, then let them drop again. “You didn’t mention living in the city when we cut this deal.”

“True.” Hands in pockets, he leaned negligently against the piano and appeared to consider this. “We need to arrange a compromise.”

“What kind of a compromise?”

“You’ll stay with me one week a month, act as my wife.”

“I don’t know how to act as your wife.”

Slowly he straightened, eyes glittering with a different kind of heat. “You did fine last night.”

“That was sex, Rafe. I don’t imagine you want that twenty-four hours a day.”

“Don’t you?”

Cat’s heart danced a tango beat of fear and anticipation as he started to move closer. Blast it. She didn’t want to back away. But she didn’t trust him, either—him or the heat drifting through her blood and seeping into her skin.

One week a month, in his bed, trying to conceive his baby.

He stopped in front of her, and she forced herself to lift her chin and meet his gaze. To keep this conversation about what mattered. “If I were to stay with you—what else would you expect of me? Do I have to cook? Clean?”

“I have a housekeeper,” he said coolly, while his eyes sparked with heat. “I didn’t marry you to cook and clean. I married you to be in my bed.”

“One week a month, until I conceive. Will that be in the contract?”

“Contract?”

“Yes. I want all the terms and conditions spelled out in a written contract. And there should be something like a prenuptial agreement, too.”

His eyes narrowed momentarily, then he laughed. Not his usual smooth, silky sound of amusement, not even the earlier harsh sound of disbelief, but a low, edgy sound that snaked through Cat’s senses. “What? You don’t trust me not to take your station away from you?”

“I mean to protect you. All
your
wealth. When this marriage ends, I don’t want anything of yours.”

“Anything?” he repeated, dangerously soft.

“Anything other than what we’ve agreed upon. I don’t want anything else from you.”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear, Catriona.” Eyes cooler than she’d ever seen them drifted over her, taking in her clothes and lingering on her naked left hand. “Anything else you’ve failed to drum into me? Anything you think I may have missed?”

No way could she back down from that look of cool disdain. No way could she back away from the challenge in his voice. “There is one thing.” She lifted her chin. “I won’t sleep with you again until the contract is drawn up and approved.”

He stared back at her for a long time while her heart beat hard and high in her throat. A long time while her stomach churned because she could not tell what he was thinking. Too long for her not to point out the deal they’d made on the plane coming to America.

“You promised it would always be my call, Rafe. That you would back off whenever I said so.”

“If that’s what you want, Catriona.” Expression flat, eyes cool, he started to turn away. “I’ve never imposed myself on any woman. I’m not about to start now.”

A
written contract and no sex until it was drawn up, approved and signed.

Not the outcome Rafe wanted for himself or needed for the sake of the will clause. The real bitch of it was how he’d let it get to him for a good two hours after he strolled out of their hotel suite. Yeah, he’d strolled out of there just as coolly as he’d agreed to her terms.

His smarting ego wouldn’t let him show how much her lack of trust affected him.

He’d strolled out of the suite and right on down to the hotel casino where he’d done something he hadn’t done in close to ten years. He gambled indiscriminately. He lost badly. And he didn’t have anyone to blame but his own stupid self.

The money didn’t matter. Losing did. He hated the whole concept of loss, and today had to be a landmark day of failure. He’d not only lost at the tables, but he’d lost the exchange of words with Catriona and—worse even than that—he’d lost his cool.

Rafe Carlisle, legend at laidback, king of nonchalant, had got his ego all in a twist because Catriona hadn’t played his game his way. Afterward he’d sulked like a kid following a tantrum.

And wasn’t that the perfect analogy for his behavior today?

Outside the casino Rafe shook his head in self-disgust. It was his own damn fault for not sorting out the details beforehand. Truth was, he didn’t altogether blame Catriona for her stance. She’d been burned in a handshake deal with neighbors she’d known all her life. Friends she’d trusted.

If he’d played his cards right, he would have conceded whatever points she wanted, negotiated a few perks of his own, and parleyed his way right back into her bedroom. Right now she’d be naked except for a cool handful of diamonds around her flushed and sweat-dampened throat.

Rafe patted his jacket pocket where the jewelry box rested. He could go upstairs and present them to her now, along with a bunch of exotic orchids and the world’s smoothest apology. But his male pride balked at being set on its bruised backside again today. She could do that, his wife, if he let her. The way she’d done with that crack about other women.

Hell, if he’d slept with a tenth of the women the gossip magazines claimed, there’d be a certain part of him worn-out by now.

No, Rafe wasn’t about to present his wife with another chance at putting him down. She wanted a written agreement, and that’s what she would get. No pleading, no asking, no cajoling in between.

A contract signed and sealed, and then she would be in his bed. Honoring her side of the deal.

They flew to L.A. late that evening, then met their flight home to Sydney. Over dinner Rafe took the opportunity to talk through Catriona’s terms and conditions, making sure they agreed on all the salient points. It was all very cool and civ
ilized, and Rafe hated that fake cordiality almost as much as their earlier confrontation.

Almost.

When they were done eating and conciliating, she politely excused herself, donned headphones and engrossed herself—apparently—in a movie. Rafe swallowed his irritation and muttered, “Don’t mind me. I can entertain myself.”

But then, watching the nervy flick of her thumbs against middle fingers, he recalled her uneasiness about flying on the trip over and he reached across the dividing console for her hand. She shook her head and mouthed, “No, I’m all right,” and he shucked off her rejection with a lazy shrug.

He didn’t bother her again.

He made some calls home, checking in with his secretary, booking an early appointment with his lawyer, calling his downstairs neighbor to let her know he’d be back in the morning. Milla had a key so she could look after the cat whenever he was away, and for some reason he didn’t like the idea of her bowling in unannounced on Catriona. And since he had the morning meeting with Jack Konrad’s law firm, Catriona would be home alone.

It mattered, he discovered with a sharp grab of tension, her first impression of his home. He wanted her to be comfortable. He wanted her to feel as relaxed there as he’d felt at her breakfast table. He wanted her to like it enough that she’d want to extend that one week a month into more.

And he wanted to introduce her into his family. She might not want his fancy clothes or the staff wages he intended to pay on her station, but here was something he could give her free. His family.

That’s the call he left until last, but Alex didn’t pick up his phone. In the past he’d have gotten a real kick out of irritating his elder sibling with a drawled message on his voice mail. Something like, “Guess what, bro? I got hitched last night in Vegas.”

But not today. Not with this news. It was too…hell, he didn’t know what. Too serious. Too important. Too—

Frowning, he cut a glance toward the next seat. Found Catriona watching him with a curious intensity. As if she were trying to work something out, too. Something that confused her sleepy hazel eyes, and that unusually soft and vulnerable expression seemed to suck the breath right out of Rafe’s lungs.

She blinked slowly and looked away, breaking eye contact and leaving him feeling hollow and, yeah, cheated. Because she hadn’t smiled? Because she hadn’t maintained her usual direct gaze? Because she’d turned away without a word to explain what was bothering her?

Rafe turned back to his phone with a strange tightness in his chest. A feeling that something had changed right there and then but no one had let him in on the secret. He watched her for another minute, hoping she’d turn back, but she didn’t. And suddenly it struck him what had changed.

His attitude.

He wanted more than her, naked and willing, her hands in his hair and eyes linked with his as he came apart deep in her body. He wanted more than great sex, and more than the knowledge that they were each providing the other with something essential.

He wanted more than the essentials. He wanted her respect and her trust. He didn’t know how to earn those or even if that was possible, given his reputation and her current attitude. He would try, starting with honoring their handshake deal, keeping his cool, and making her feel comfortable in his home and comfortable with his family.

“I’m on my way home from America,” he told Alex’s voice mail, after dialing again. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet tomorrow. Someone…important. I’ll call back in the morning.”

Cat completed another aimless circuit of the spacious penthouse, back to where her sole companion watched her
with wary circumspection. When she got too close, the Russian blue rose from his perch on a suede window seat and meandered on long, graceful legs to the far end of the living room. A pretty efficient snub, Cat decided, trying not to take it to heart.

“He’s shy with strangers,” Rafe had explained while he petted the animal’s plush silvery coat with long, slow strokes. While fine hairs rose and quivered all over
her
skin. “He’ll get used to you.”

If I stay long enough.

The words had shimmered through her mind then, and they did again now, three hours later. She wouldn’t be able to stand seven days of inactivity. She wouldn’t be able to stand feeling this twitchy restiveness, which was almost as bad as the awful awkwardness of the first hour, before Rafe had left for work. Almost as bad as one of the panicky attacks she kept suffering at regular intervals, whenever it struck her that this wasn’t all a dream or some Cinderella fantasy.

This was real. This was happening to
her.
She had married this man, and this harborside penthouse apartment was her home, too.

For one week every month.

With a flutter of pulse, her gaze shifted off to the right—to the stairs leading up to the loft-level master bedroom. He hadn’t taken her up there during the tour of inspection, but only because she’d demurred. That had been one of the most awful moments of all, when she’d reminded him that she wouldn’t be sharing his bed.

“Take whichever bedroom you want,” he’d said, apparently unperturbed. “Make yourself at home. I have a meeting to get to but I’ll call when I’m finished.”

“You don’t have to check up on me.” Polite, cool, when she was quietly freaking out at being left alone in his too-tidy, too-color-coordinated, too-designer-chic home. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure you will be, but I’m waiting on a phone call from my brother Alex. We may be meeting him for lunch.”

At the elevator he’d turned and looked back at her in an all-encompassing way that made her heart do a silly skittery thing. A really silly skittery thing given his parting comment.

“You might want to change into a dress for lunch. We’ll likely be going to Zarta’s.”

“Whoever Zarta may be,” she’d grumbled at the closing elevator doors. “Like I would know!”

Left with a ton of turbulent energy pumping through her veins and a ton of time on her hands, she’d wanted to get out, to walk, but she was afraid she’d mess up the tricky security system or that she’d walk so far she’d end up lost. And she couldn’t ask for directions since she didn’t even know his address!

Didn’t
that
sum up her situation perfectly? She was married to a stranger, installed in his home, the address unknown.

She took her time showering but she hadn’t dressed because she couldn’t decide how to dress. Wandering around in a bathrobe, she was still working on whether to defiantly show up in jeans or to compliantly choose from one of the Vegas dresses, which never did get returned to their places of purchase. For the past half an hour of wandering, her sole focus had been that decision. Jeans versus dress. Floral sundress versus pink retro number.

“My God,” she told the cat, disgusted with herself. “I am turning into my stepmother!”

Brilliant green eyes stared back at her, unblinking. Not so much as a twitch of his regal Russian tail. Looking at her with the same disdain her stepmother always employed, as if she were not only a blight on the aesthetic landscape but a complete disappointment. The big, raw, homely girl with no fashion sense. Best bury her at the back of the family photo.

Cat thought she’d gotten over caring about that.

“I have,” she muttered as she paced another restless circuit
of the open-plan living area. It was just this apartment, these surroundings, the decor.

The place had monstrously high ceilings for an apartment and a full wall of glass looking out over Sydney Harbour. She shouldn’t feel so confined. Turning, she forced herself to still and look around her. And to acknowledge that her restiveness might not be due solely to the apartment or disturbing thoughts of her stepmother or even the claustrophobic sense of being trapped in a deal that was way out of her league.

Perhaps it was also the notion of meeting his brother.

She hardly even knew her husband. How could she meet his family? How could she smile and shake this brother’s hand, knowing that he knew what she knew? That she’d married Rafe out of desperation. For money. And that she’d been chosen, too, for a specific purpose. Looked over and procured for breeding purposes.

An overwhelming gust of anxiety swamped her, leaving her feeling clammy and slightly ill. She hadn’t even thought ahead to this scenario or how she would handle it. How she would feel to be introduced to his family.

How they might judge her and find her wanting, the same way her father’s new wife had done.

The phone rang, an expensive burr of sound that cut through the quiet but not through her jittery nerves. She couldn’t force herself to pick it up. She let it ring out, then she sat on the couch, hugged her knees to her chest and despised herself for being a coward.

Rafe pocketed his phone and cut across some heavy pedestrian traffic toward Phillip Street and the quickest route home. He’d actually hailed a cab before logic intervened with a compelling alternate suggestion.
Take a deep breath, my man, and think again.
In Vegas he’d reacted on raw, unfettered emotion, and look what that coughed up.

A wife he couldn’t entice into his bedroom for a look-see, let alone anything hands on.

Thinking about Catriona in his home that morning—restrained, awkward, gaze sliding away from any meaningful eye contact—didn’t help his state of mind. Nor did thinking about those hours in Vegas when he’d stewed with worry while she was out taking a walk and buying a few necessities at Walgreens.

She’d likely gone for a walk now. That’s why she hadn’t answered his call. No reason to rush home for round two of marital mess up.

Turning on his heel, he headed back toward Circular Quay and his office at the harborfront Carlisle Grande. He’d spent the last two hours at Jack Konrad’s offices, thrashing out wording and details with a trio of contract experts. Lawyers who’d felt compelled to remind him, at every turn, how much he stood to lose.

Lawyers who hadn’t seen the proud set of Catriona’s chin when she told him she didn’t want anything from him beyond the debt repayment.

In the end he’d had to remind them who was paying whom. And that he wanted the contract drawn today. And until his wife approved and signed that document, he figured it best he keep away from any one-on-one encounters, especially at his apartment where his irritation over the bedroom arrangement would not stand another round of testing.

If, in fact, she was still at his apartment.

Worry shadowed his footsteps but he kept on walking.

When he got back to his office, he would call again….

“Catriona?”

“Yes. I’m here.”

Breathy, and with the briefest hesitation, but at least she’d answered this time. Rafe shifted from his tense perch on the edge of his desk, slumping into his chair and closing his eyes
for a second. A ridiculous intensity of relief wiped his mind clear of everything except instinct, and he said what he’d wanted to say early that morning, when he’d taken her into his home for the first time. “I’m glad you’re there.”

She was silent for a beat, and then her voice—still husky, still hesitant—came through the line again. “Sorry I didn’t answer before. I was…in the bathroom.”

“I thought you must have gone out.”

“Out…where?”

“For a walk.”
Or a drive to, say, the airport.