“I’d just like to say that you’ve changed.”
Rebecca’s mouth fell open.
“I know you recognize me. It’s been quite a while, hasn’t it, Rebecca? Did you think I didn’t remember you?” His voice was as soft and smooth as melted chocolate. It made her dizzy, a response she immediately put down to confusion.
Nicholas gave Rebecca a slow smile that made her pulse race. “You haven’t the sort of face that’s easily forgotten. But I don’t expect you to back out of our arrangement because of our past little liaison.”
His dark eyes held hers unwaveringly and she finally realized what she’d let herself in for….
CATHY WILLIAMS is Trinidadian and was brought up on the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. She was awarded a scholarship to study in Britain, and came to Exeter University in 1975 to continue her studies into the great loves of her life: languages and literature. It was there that Cathy met her husband, Richard. Since they married, Cathy has lived in England, originally in the Thames Valley but now in the Midlands. Cathy and Richard have three small daughters.
Wife for Hire
Cathy Williams
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ONE
FROM the very moment that Rebecca Ryan opened her eyes that morning, she knew that the next few hours were going to be the worst of her teaching career.
She was not, by nature, prone to dramatic flights of imagination, but for a few brief seconds she heartily wished that she could shut her eyes and make the day go away; then she climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom. Normally, this was her most relaxing time of the day. That long, leisurely soak in the bath before she opened the door of her small but comfortable school quarters, and braced herself for the challenges confronting anyone courageous enough to teach in an all-girls boarding-school. Or, as Mrs Williams, the principal, once put it, to exercise skilful manipulation of the homesick, the prepubescent, the adolescent, the hormonal and the premenstrual, whilst trying to educate to the highest possible standard.
Rebecca loved every minute of it.
Except, she thought, settling into the bath water, for today. Today she wished that she had mulled over her career options a bit more thoroughly at the age of twenty-one, and decided in favour of something slightly less stress-inducing, such as copy typist.
She sighed deeply and allowed her mind to scuttle over the past thirty-six hours.
There should be a tablet you could take to get rid of unpleasant situations, she thought. There would be a huge market for it. Just swallow two special, new, improved paracetamol capsules and let your problems fade conveniently away.
In the absence of any such panacea, she mentally worked out how she would deal with the problem staring her in the face. Part of it had already been handled, and she had emerged shocked, bruised but, generally speaking, still in good working order.
Part two of the problem, which she estimated was probably a mere one hour’s drive away from the school, would have to be dealt with as pragmatically as possible. Parents, she knew from experience, were not particularly reasonable when it came to dealing with their children’s misdemeanours. They were prone, initially, to disbelief, then to self-recrimination, and finally, in a few instances, to complete denial of all blame by placing it squarely on whomever happened to be handy, usually the teacher.
Rebecca, whose height waged a constant battle with the dimensions of most baths, stuck her feet out at the bottom, wriggled her toes and decided that, if Mrs Williams refused to allow her the luxury of sitting through the uncomfortable interview in relative silence, she would be firm, practical, sympathetic and as implacable as a rock.
She would be very careful not to let her wayward tongue get the better of her. She would keep all personal opinion to herself. She would smile a lot, with more than a hint of compassion, and she would not presume to preach to someone she didn’t know from Adam on his methods of fathering. She would close her mind to every word Emily Parr had uttered to her on the subject of her father, because teenagers could be quite unreliable when it came to descriptions of their home lives, and she would do as little as possible to upset any apple carts.
That resolved, she contemplated what she should wear for the meeting. Normally, as a teacher, she invariably opted for the most comfortable clothing she could find. Loose skirts and tops, flat shoes, muted colours. From as far back as she could remember, she had always tried to wear things that diminished her size. Five feet ten inches was tall enough, but add to that a generous bustline and curves that never seemed appropriate for the role of teacher, and what remained was something, she considered, fairly Amazonian.
Today, she decided, she would take advantage of her height to ward off any attacks Emily’s father might have in store for her. She knew that she frequently intimidated men. There was nothing about her at all that begged for their protective instincts. If anything, with some of the men she had dated in the past, she had ended up feeling protective. She had long ago assumed that the only men she attracted were the ones who were turned on by a dominant female. Or at least by a woman they considered would fit the role of the dominant female. It was useless telling them that the last thing she wanted was to take command or, God forbid, mother them.
She slipped on a dark grey suit, which was as prepossessing on her as a cold sore but succeeded in making her look rather intimidating, and stuck on a pair of two-inch high-heel court shoes which she had to dust down from lack of use. Then she stood in front of the mirror and surveyed the net result with a critical eye.
Definitely the outfit for a potentially difficult situation, she decided. And, from what she had heard about Emily’s father from Mrs Williams, she would need all the superficial help she could get her hands on.
He was, she had worked out, not one of life’s easygoing characters. For a start, he had made only one appearance in the two years his daughter had been at the school, and that had been to complain about her grades. Mrs Williams, recalling the incident, had blanched at the memory of it, and it took a great deal for Mrs Williams to lose her legendary calm.
So how he was going to react to this major body blow he would be dealt in a little under an hour was enough to make anyone shudder with apprehension.
Rebecca gazed thoughtfully at her reflection and was, for once, grateful for what confronted her. A woman of imposing height and stature, face attractive but well played down so that the firm jawline and widely spaced blue eyes looked strongly determined, and with her shoulder-length auburn hair tortured into something she hoped resembled a bun at the back, she looked every inch the sort of person that other people should consider very carefully before antagonising.
And her curves were well concealed under the boxy grey jacket. Curves and grim-lipped severity did not make the best of companions.
Fifteen minutes later she was striding confidently towards the principal’s office, glancing in at the classes in progress and mentally hoping that her own class was being well behaved for Mr Emscote, the English teacher, who had a tendency to wilt when confronted with too many high-spirited teenage girls.
Mrs Williams was waiting for her in the office, standing