A Price Worth Paying(21)

He shrugged. ‘Still, I think we will have no trouble convincing people.’

They were almost at Getaria when she remembered to ask, ‘What was that about in the shop before, when you first asked about the dress?’

He looked across at her. ‘When?’

‘You said something like “What about that one?” after they brought the first batch of gowns over and that one was set apart. But you were all speaking so fast, I couldn’t understand.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t understand what you’re asking. We have the dress, don’t we?’

‘I mean, was there a reason they didn’t include it in the first place? Did they think it wouldn’t suit me?’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Apparently another of their clients had expressed interest in seeing it, that was all.’

‘Oh, you mean they had it reserved for someone?’

He shrugged. ‘It makes no difference now.’

‘But won’t that person be disappointed that it’s sold?’

He smiled. ‘Probably.’

She settled back into her seat, tangling fingers in her lap, newly manicured fingernails painted bright red if he wasn’t mistaken. He had to hand it to her, she had been busy this afternoon.

‘I should thank you, of course,’ she said, ‘for the clothes and everything.’

‘I’m not sure you got anywhere near enough.’

‘You must be kidding,’ she said with a shake of her head, ‘there’s heaps, really there is. I just hate to think how much it cost. But in case you’re wondering, I paid for the salon. I don’t want you thinking I’d take advantage …’

Was she serious? Or was this just another tactic to lull him into taking her and her story at face value and believing she wanted nothing more than to make an old man die happy? Because none of the women he knew were anywhere near as naive or horrified at the prospect of spending someone else’s money on themselves.

But then none of the women he knew would go to such extraordinary lengths that she was going either. Why was she going to such trouble for her grandfather? He didn’t like that he didn’t know, but if he ended up with the vines and she ended up not pregnant and with no claim on the estate, he didn’t really care.

What he did like was the way she blushed. Whether it was because of her fair colouring, or because she was harbouring some guilty secret, that was one thing he wasn’t used to. He glanced sideways at her. And he liked whatever the salon had done to her hair and how the sunlight through his roof turned her highlights to glistening threads of copper and gold. Not that he was about to admit that to her.

In fact, given his misgivings about her motives, he was better off not giving her too much encouragement at all.

He changed down gears as he headed into a tight bend, changing down gears on his thoughts at the same time.

‘You might want to save your money,’ he said, probably sounding more gruff than he intended, ‘for when you get home. You might need it.’

Cold.

He might just as well have tossed a bucket of icy water over her. And why?

Moreover, why did she even care?

Alesander was nothing to her but a solution to a problem.

She was nothing to him but a means to an end.

It was a mutual arrangement.

So why did he feel it so important to remind her that this arrangement was not permanent?

Didn’t he think that was how she wanted it?

She turned to him, or rather to his profile, strong and noble and too utterly perfect to be real, as he negotiated the winding track up the hill towards her grandfather’s vineyard. ‘What are you so afraid of?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that every chance you get, you feel the need to remind me that this arrangement is temporary. “You might want to save your money for when you get home,” you said. Well, I do know this is temporary because I was the one who insisted it would be from the start.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Just that you seem to be operating under the misapprehension that I either want or expect this arrangement to become permanent.’

He scoffed her protests away. ‘I have only your word that you don’t want it to be.’

‘I am expecting to sign a contract saying exactly that! A contract which includes the condition I specifically demanded when I brokered this agreement—a condition that precludes sex between us. So when will you believe me? Because as clearly wonderful a catch as you so evidently are, I would rather not have to marry you. I don’t want to be your wife, other than to convince Felipe that his vines are as good as reunited. And when Felipe is no longer with us, I expect the quickest divorce from marriage with you that it is possible to get. I expect the contract terms to reflect that fact.’