There was no reason why his words should be like a douche of icy water, and certainly in the circumstances Amber had no right to feel mortally affronted both by his cynical observation and being classed with Paul’s mother, and yet for some obscure reason she did.
‘Where is Paul’s mother now?’ she asked curiously, recoiling a little from the heaped plate of bacon and eggs he put in front of her.
‘Eat it while it’s hot,’ he admonished, putting another plate on the table and pulling up a chair to sit down opposite her. ‘Paul’s mother? As far as I know she’s living in bliss and the lap of luxury as Mrs Hal Bryden the Fourth, somewhere in the good ole U.S. of A.’
‘She divorced you?’
Joel shook his head, his eyes hardening to a flinty grey. ‘I divorced her—not because she was unfaithful—I’m not naïve enough to think he was the first. No, I divorced her because of Paul. She’d risked his life once for her own pleasure, I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I asked for custody and got it—now she’s contesting the judge’s decision, claiming that although at the time of the divorce she wasn’t able to offer Paul a stable family background, now that she has remarried she’s more able to claim full custody. My solicitor believes she has grounds for a good and plausible case, and because I can’t afford to take any more risks with Paul’s life, I’m determined not to give her the slightest opportunity of changing the judge’s decision; and that means being able to provide him with as much of a family background as she can—a father and a mother!’
‘But you said you only wanted to be married for six months?’ Amber protested.
‘The longer I have sole custody of Paul without any problems the less likely a judge is to reverse his decision. I know Teri; patience was never her strong suit. Within six months she’ll be ready to admit defeat.’
‘And Paul?’ Amber asked, suddenly angry on the little boy’s behalf. ‘Has anyone consulted him? Has he been asked whether or not he wants to stay with you?’
‘No,’ Joel told her evenly, ‘and for the simple reason that ever since the accident he has never once—until last night—mentioned his mother. In point of fact he didn’t see much of her before the divorce. Teri spent a good deal of time in the States with her family, and she always refused to take Paul, claiming that he was too young to travel. Too young to travel, but not too young to send away to school, or so she was trying to persuade me. Oh, I’m not trying to put all the blame on her. I was equally neglectful,’ Joel admitted. ‘My business takes me away a good deal, and weeks would go by with me only seeing Paul for the odd half hour when he was in bed. It took the accident to show me what was happening; how I was missing out on my son’s formative years, depriving him of the love and affection which as my son he had a right to expect from me. In time, with care and a stable background, he should outgrow the trauma of what happened—he was trapped in the back of the car when it crashed. Tori always drove far too fast. She left him alone when she ran back to the telephone kiosk she’d passed to ring her lover and warn him not to expect her, and the poor kid must have thought she’d deserted him for good. He was hysterical by the time the doctor got to him, and in trying to pull himself free had worsened the injury to his leg.’
Amber was appalled, sickened by the crass selfishness of Paul’s mother. How could any mother desert her child at a moment like that?
‘The doctors believe that once the emotional scars start to heal his leg will respond better to treatment, but another emotional upheaval like being suddenly forced to go and live with Teri could set him back years.’
Amber could well understand Joel’s dilemma.
‘I’m hoping to persuade an aunt of mine, who at present lives in Australia to make her home with us and act as a surrogate mother to Paul, someone he can come to rely on and trust. He never trusted Teri; she was too changeable, her moods too violent for him to know where he was with her. She never wanted a child; Paul’s conception was a mistake. In more ways than one,’ he added under his breath. ‘Once she knows I’ve remarried, Teri will do everything she can to try and get the court to revoke their decision in her favour, and for that reason, to the outside world at least, our marriage must be seen to be completely normal. Her husband is an extremely rich man; rich enough for Teri to be able to hire private detectives to spy on us in public. Inside this house, when we’re alone, we can live as strangers, but to the rest of the world you must be a girl I’ve fallen deeply in love with and who loves me in return. You will share my bedroom and my bed.’ He saw Amber’s expression and raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Something wrong?’
Amber forced herself to meet his glance squarely, reminding herself how desperately she needed his money.
‘Our marriage will be strictly a business arrangement?’
‘By which I take it that you mean no sex?’ Joel countered coolly. ‘But of course. I thought I’d made that plain; even if you were Venus herself you’d be perfectly safe. Mercenary women have no appeal for me—in fact I find them a complete turn-off; and your charms…’ His eyes flicked cruelly over her too thin body and misshapen leg before returning to her paper-white face, ‘such as they are, are not sufficient to change my mind. In public we will be newly married lovers; but there’s no likelihood of me forgetting that it’s just a charade. Want to back out?’
The words which would free her from his taunting presence hovered on her lips, but before she could utter them two pictures flashed through her mind. The first, surprisingly, was of Paul, small and vulnerable as he watched her with wary eyes; and the second was of Rob, embarrassed and uncomfortable as he left her hospital bedside for the last time. Together they were powerful enough to bridle her tongue, and taking her silence as a denial, Joel continued smoothly, ‘Very well. There’s no point in delaying unnecessarily. I’ll organise a special licence—it will make our marriage appear all the more romantic; there’s something recklessly foolhardy about a man who marries with all the haste implied by a special licence, don’t you agree?’ Without waiting for her reply he added, ‘Oh, there’s just one more small detail. Before we do marry I should like you to sign a document I’ll have drawn up acknowledging the temporary nature of our marriage and the fact that you’re being paid to serve in the capacity of my wife for a brief period. A form of insurance for me just in case you get any silly ideas.’
‘You flatter yourself,’ Amber gritted at him. ‘Hasn’t losing one wife to another man taught you anything about the opposite sex?’
She had the satisfaction of seeing the faint flush of anger lying along his cheekbones and leaping to life in the granite eyes, but he had himself under control almost immediately, the anger masked by the cynical expression she was coming to recognise.
‘A great deal,’ he drawled, ‘but millionaires naïve enough to fall for women like you and Teri are thin on the ground, and you might just decide to settle for second best.’
‘EVERYTHING is arranged. I’ve fixed the ceremony for Tuesday, which gives us the weekend to get organised. First on the agenda, I suspect, will be a shopping trip. You’ll need a wedding ring,’ Joel informed Amber dryly, ‘and new clothes.’ His eyes slid assessingly over the plain grey skirt and dull white blouse she had been wearing for her interview, and which were still the only clothes she possessed, after two days in his home, having vetoed her suggestion that she returned to Birmingham to collect her others. There were things she had to do, she protested—her mother to tell; her landlady.
All tasks which which could be attended to by telephone, Joel had reminded her, letting her know that he wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to back out of their arrangement.
They were in his study, an attractive masculine room at the back of the house furnished with comfortable leather chairs, a desk, some beautiful reproduction Georgian filing cabinets disguised as bow-fronted chests and