The Last-Minute Marriage

CHAPTER TWO

MARCUS thought he knew women. Marcus was wrong. And so was the shop where he took Peta.

One of the women he’d dated had told him once that the shop stocked fabulous business clothes but Peta hobbled in and looked around in suspicion. The shop assistants reacted the same way.

They smiled at Marcus. They were cautiously and patronisingly polite to the waif he had in tow.

Still, they were here for clothes. Not for pleasantries. Marcus didn’t have time to mess around.

‘Can you fit Peta out in something corporate?’ he asked the assistant and Peta flashed him a look of annoyance.

‘That makes me sound like a Barbie doll. Let’s dress her in Corporate today.’

‘Don’t you want me to help you?’

‘No.’

‘Peta…’

‘All right.’ As the assistant searched the racks for something suitable she flashed him a look that was half apology, but the defiance was still there. ‘I know. You’re being really nice. I’m being really stupid. But this feels…wrong.’

‘It’s sensible. Just do it.’

‘Try this,’ the assistant said, with a bright smile at Marcus. Peta was ignored. She held the suit up against Peta, but it was Marcus who was clearly expected to make the decision.

He might have, but he never got the chance. As the girl smiled across at Marcus, Peta lifted the price tag.

She yelped.

Marcus doubted if he’d ever heard a woman yelp before but she yelped. She pushed the suit away and stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

‘What, are you crazy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the price. I can’t afford this.’

‘I’m paying. I told you. I ruined your clothes.’

‘Yeah, you spilled my drink over my five-buck shirt and you’re intending to replace it with stuff that costs three thousand dollars?’ She fended off the suit some more. ‘Three thousand dollars! Look, this seemed a really nice idea, and I’m delighted to have a bandage on my ankle and these neat crutches, but suddenly it’s out of hand. You’ve done enough. I can’t take any more. Can I leave? Now?’

She was backing towards the door.

‘You won’t get in to see Charles,’ Marcus warned. He watched the conflicting emotions play over her face and felt the same conflict himself. He’d been enjoying himself, he decided. It wasn’t half bad-millionaire playing benefactor to very attractive waif. But the waif was supposed to be grateful. She was supposed to smile sweetly and acquiesce.

This was like Cinderella saying the glass slipper didn’t fit. Or didn’t look right.

She was still backing, no mean feat on brand-new crutches, and the conflicting emotions were giving way to overriding distress. ‘I just have to deal with Charles my own way,’ she muttered.

‘You agreed to do this.’

‘I was stupid. I must have hit my head on the way down the stairs. So now, somehow, I’m standing in a swish store with a guy who has more money than I’ll ever dream about-and he’s offering to spend enough money on a suit to feed my family for a year.’

‘Your family?’

Her face shuttered even more, and the pain intensified. ‘I don’t need to talk about my family. I’m out of my depth. I need to leave. I’m sorry.’ She backed a bit more until she was balancing in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry. Thank you very much for all you’ve done.’

‘Peta…’

‘I can’t do this. I can’t.’

He caught her three doors down. She’d tried to move fast but she was on crutches.

He’d followed. Of course he’d followed, even though he was unsure why he was still intent on helping. But he let her have a little space until she cooled down.

She was forced to cool down. Her anger could only carry her so far before the pain in her ankle caught up with her. He watched her slow. He saw her steps falter as if she was unsure where to go from here.

He saw her shoulders slump. Saw the despair catch up.

And when he caught her… As he put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him, he wasn’t surprised to see tears welling behind those lovely eyes.

The tears stopped the moment he touched her. She swiped her cheek and pulled back. Swaying dangerously. He put out his hands to steady her but she backed some more.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You shouldn’t be sorry. You were trying to be nice.’

He carefully pushed away the urge to play fairy godfather some more. He tried to put himself in her place. It was hard, but maybe he could manage it.

Once upon a time he’d been dependant, too, and he knew how much harder it was to take than give. It was just… In the last few years there had been so many takers.

Peta was a novelty. But he could adjust.

‘I was a bit insensitive,’ he managed. ‘I had this idea that I could help. And I’d like to.’

‘You can’t.’

‘I can, you know,’ he said softly. ‘It would be my privilege. If you let me.’

‘Yeah, toss money.’ Another angry swipe at tears she clearly despised and an angry sniff. ‘It’s all you know how to do.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He was stymied. He didn’t have a clue what was happening. How had he got himself in this situation?

He could just stop. He had no reason to persist.

Why did he?

He had no idea what this woman wanted with Charles Higgins. He had no idea whether he could help her.

All he knew was that he wanted to know more.

‘Can we start again, please?’ he asked, and she sniffed once more and stared up at him, her face loaded with suspicion.

‘Start again?’

‘I’ve driven into this like a blunderbuss,’ he admitted. ‘I have no idea what’s going on. I want to help. I don’t even know why I want to help but I do.’ He reached out and touched her hand. He didn’t hold. He simply touched.

He knew that she still had the urge to run. He had it himself.

‘Tell me what you need,’ he told her. ‘What can I do to help? Right now.’

She took a deep breath. Regrouped. Around them were a bustle of Fifth Avenue shoppers-smartly dressed women, suited businessmen. Marcus fitted right in.

Peta didn’t fit in at all. But she obviously wasn’t thinking of her appearance. She stared at him for a while longer and then made a confession-as if she was forced to admit something she was ashamed of.

‘I need something to eat,’ she told him.

‘You’re hungry?’

‘I lost my bagel-remember? I didn’t have breakfast and that was my lunch. And then I need a ticket on the subway to the backpacker’s where I have my things. I need to stay until tomorrow-for Aunt Hattie’s funeral. But that’s it. I was stupid to try to see Charles. I just want… I think now that I just want to go home.’

‘Right.’ He nodded, aware all the time that she was poised for flight. ‘Okay. I’ll organise you transport. But let me feed you first. No.’ He shook his head as she backed again and he gave a rueful smile. He knew what she was thinking. At long last he was getting the idea. Money didn’t impress this woman. Money made her want to run. ‘There’s a great deli nearby and it’s not expensive. It’s simple food but it’s good. Concede at least that I owe you a meal. Can you cope with me for a little while longer?’

She stared up at him, seemingly bemused. She balanced on her crutches while she surveyed him. Her green eyes were suddenly thoughtful.

It wasn’t the sort of look he was accustomed to receiving from the women he moved with. To say it disconcerted him was putting it mildly.

‘You must think I’m really ungrateful,’ she said at last, and it was so far from what he was really thinking that he blinked.

‘I don’t. Let me feed you.’

‘Like something in a cage at the zoo?’

He smiled. ‘I’m sorry. That was badly phrased. Share a meal with me. Please.’

‘Out of charity?’

‘Out of my need to give you recompense.’

She stared at him for a long moment-and in that moment something shifted. The Cinderella image receded still further. There was a strength here, he realised. A latent force.

She was out of her depth. She wasn’t sure what was happening to her right now, but this was a woman who would normally be in charge of her world.

Things were out of control but she was still fighting.

He’d be lucky if she’d agree to have a meal with him.

But she did, and he was aware of an absurd surge of gratitude as she did the thanking. ‘Thank you,’ she told him. ‘I’d like that.’

‘So would I.’ And he meant it.

The deli he took her to was one he hadn’t eaten at for years, but still he knew it. The proprietor, a big man in his late sixties, greeted him with pleasure.

‘Well. If it isn’t the great Marcus come to patronise this humble establishment…’

‘Cut it out, Sam,’ Marcus growled and Sam grinned.

‘Yeah, right. To what do we owe this honour?’ He glanced at Peta and his wide smile was a welcome all by itself. ‘A lady. Of course. And a lady of taste. I can sense that already. I bet you could wrap yourself around one of my specials and not even think about counting calories.’

‘I bet I could.’ In the face of Sam’s friendliness she seemed to finally relax-just a smidgeon. ‘Tell me what’s good.’

‘What’s good? In this establishment everything’s good. Tell you what…’ He cast a sideways glance at Marcus and got an almost imperceptible nod for his pains. Sam’s deli was famous in this city and his reputation was richly deserved. He sensed what people needed and he provided it. You came to Sam’s for comfort food and friendliness and good humour. Sam provided it in bucketloads. ‘Why don’t I bring you my specials?’ he told them. ‘My lunch works. You sit back, think of nothing except what you need to talk about and let me worry about your meal. It’s what I do best.’

Think of nothing except what they needed to talk about…

It seemed there was nothing to talk about. Or Peta didn’t seem to think there was. The food that Sam brought them was wonderful: a vast, steaming bowl of clam chowder- Sam’s speciality, handed down from his grandma, who’d invented clams herself, he told them-and some sort of corn flapjacks that were truly spectacular.

It was good food. No. It was great food, Marcus conceded, and he found himself wondering why it had been so long since he’d been here. He sat back, enjoying the food but also enjoying the buzz. The place was full of students and young mothers and academics and artists who looked as if they didn’t have a buck to their name. All of them were attacking their food the same way Peta was. This was food to be relished at every mouthful.

And while she ate, he found himself thinking of the date he’d been on last night. Elizabeth was a corporate lawyer-a good one. She was smart and sophisticated and beautiful. But she’d toyed with her salad, she’d drunk half a glass of wine and refused dessert.

Her beautiful waistline came at a cost, Marcus had thought, and though she’d invited him up to her magnificent apartment afterwards for coffee, coffee was all they’d had. He’d felt no desire to take things further.

But now…sitting on the far side of the table and watching Peta devour her chowder and relish every mouthful of her flapjacks, he thought he’d rather have this contented silence than smart conversation. Genuine enjoyment.

‘What?’ she demanded suddenly, and he looked a question.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re looking at me like I’m an interesting kind of bug. I don’t like it.’

‘You’re Australian,’ he told her. ‘What do you expect?’

‘You’ve never met an Australian?’

‘Not one who likes clam chowder as much as you do.’

‘It’s the best.’ She smiled up at him and he blinked. Whew! That smile was enough to knock a man sideways.

Where had it come from? It was a killer smile. Wide and white and there was a dimple right at the corner of her mouth…

Yeah, right. Get a grip, Benson, he told himself. You need involvement here like a hole in the head.

He needed any involvement like a hole in the head.

‘You want to tell me why you need to see Charles Higgins?’ he asked and her smile faded. He was aware of a sharp stab of regret. Damn, he shouldn’t have mentioned it.

But it was why they were here. It was important. And, to tell the truth, he was intrigued.

This girl had just knocked back a gift of a three-thousand dollar suit. Just like that. Would any other woman he knew do that? It wasn’t as if it had come with strings. It would have been a gift, pure and simple.

‘You might have knocked me down, but it was partly my fault,’ she told him, and it was as if she’d read his thoughts. ‘I don’t want to be beholden. To anyone. You spend three thousand bucks on a suit for me and I’ll feel sick about it for the rest of my life. And Charles will know it’s a front.’

‘Charles knows you?’

‘I told you. He’s my cousin.’

‘Then why…?’

She could see where his thoughts were heading and she was way ahead of him.

‘You think because I’m family I should have an entrée with him.’

‘Something like that.’

‘I’m over here because my aunt died,’ she told him. ‘Charles’s mother. I spent the last few days sitting by Aunt Hattie’s bedside. I haven’t seen Charles. Hattie is due to be buried tomorrow. Charles may or may not come to the funeral. He’s certainly not paying for it.’

‘So…’ He took a wild guess. ‘You’re not a close family?’

‘I’m a very close family,’ she told him, and took another mouthful of her flapjack. Difficult conversation or not, she wasn’t forgetting that she was truly enjoying this food. But her voice, when she spoke again, held more than a trace of bitterness. ‘I’m so close I’m practically glue,’ she added. ‘Good old Peta. She’ll do the right thing. The family thing. But not Charles.’

‘So why do you need to see him?’

She took a deep breath. She seemed to brace herself. Her fork was set down and her chin tilted in a gesture he was starting to recognise.

‘Aunt Hattie and my father owned half our family farm each,’ she told him. ‘My father left us his half when he died ten years back, and the agreement was always that Hattie would do the same. She hasn’t. She’s left her half to Charles. So I need him…’ Her voice faltered then, as if accepting the sheer impossibility of what she was about to suggest. ‘I need him to agree not to sell it. To let me farm it until…until I’m free.’

‘Free?’

She looked up at him and her eyes were blind with a pain he couldn’t begin to understand. ‘The farm is all I have,’ she told him. ‘It can’t mean anything to Charles. It’s just money. He must see that to do anything but let me live there would be desperately unfair.’ She bit her lip and then picked up her soda, trying desperately to move past a pain that seemed well nigh unbearable. ‘But that’s nothing to do with you. Charles is my cousin. My problem. You’ve given me a feed. Now I’ll clean myself as best I can, go back and try to face him one more time-and if I can’t I’ll go home. But at least I’ll have tried.’

He couldn’t bear it. The look of pain. The defiance. David and Goliath, and Goliath was Charles Higgins… She had to let him take the next step with her. ‘You can’t face him alone,’ he told her.

‘Of course I can.’

‘There’s no of course about it,’ he growled. ‘Charles is a slime-ball. Maybe he’s different with family but he’s still a slime-ball. Okay, I might be off the track with my offer of three-thousand-dollar suits but my instincts are right. We’ll get you something neat to wear and I’m coming in with you. I might not get you more than an interview but I can get you that.’

‘How?’

‘For a start, I own the building he rents office space in.’

She stared. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘I’m not. Regrettably. I’ve already decided not to renew his lease when it expires but he doesn’t know that. I can apply pressure.’

‘But…’

‘Finish your soda,’ he told her, aware at the back of his mind of his total amazement that he was doing this. That he was getting more and more involved. ‘We mustn’t keep Charles waiting now, must we?’

They did the dress thing again, but this time Marcus had the sense to keep it simple. They headed to a moderately priced department store and Marcus stood back while Peta chose a neat skirt and blouse and strappy sandals. She looked great, Marcus decided, and then wondered: Why do women wear three-thousand-dollar suits when they can look just as good in far cheaper clothes?

But maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe Peta wasn’t any woman. She’d look great in anything, he thought, as Robert drove them back to Higgins’s office.

The only problem was that she was a bit pale. Her hands were clenched so tightly that he could see the white in her knuckles. But she was still determinedly keeping up conversation as they made their way past Central Park.

‘It’s Central Park I most wanted to see,’ she told him. ‘Ever since I was a little girl I dreamed of riding around Central Park.’

‘You’re a country girl?’

‘I told you-we live on a farm. I milk cows for a living.’

We? Who?

It didn’t matter. Did it?

She was expecting a courteous, impersonal reply. He had to fight to find one. Somehow. ‘So…you live on a farm yet you dream of coming to New York to ride a horse?’

‘It’s a different kind of riding.’ She gave a hesitant smile and he saw that her hands were still clenched. He had to fight back the urge to lift them-to forcibly unclench them. ‘John Lennon loved this park,’ she was saying. ‘Jackie Kennedy loved this park. All these people that I’ve only read about.’

‘You admired Jackie O?’

‘The lady had class.’

‘And John Lennon?’

‘Oooh, those glasses were sexy.’

‘Really?’ he said faintly and was rewarded by a chuckle. Her hands, he noticed with satisfaction, were finally starting to relax. ‘So who else do you think of as sexy?’ he asked. ‘Just John? Paul? George? How about Ringo?’

‘Ringo was sexy,’ she agreed. ‘Really sexy. When I see the old clips I think he’s cuteness personified. But now every time I hear him I think of Thomas the Tank Engine. It’s a bit disconcerting.’

‘I imagine it might be.’

She was so different. How had his day been hijacked? he wondered. How had this happened? Instead of making plans and signing million-dollar deals, he was discussing the sexiness of Thomas the Tank Engine.

And enjoying it.

But then they were pulling up outside the offices where Charles presumably lay waiting, and her hands clenched white again.

‘Don’t sweat it,’ Marcus told her and he surprised himself by placing a hand over her much smaller one. The touch surprised them both. It was as if a frisson of electricity ran between them, warm, intimate and somehow immeasurably comforting. ‘I’m right behind you,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Every step of the way.’

Miss Pritchard-alias Attila the Hun, Charles’s secretary-was her normal appalling self. Peta stepped out of the lift and she saw her coming and sighed. She didn’t even pretend to be courteous.

‘What do you want?’

‘I’m here for my appointment,’ Peta said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘It was for ten this morning.’

‘Mr Higgins had a moment free at two,’ the woman said, her disdain obvious in her intonation. ‘But you weren’t here. He has no more appointments available until late next week.’

‘Then could you ask Mr Higgins if he’ll make an appointment free for me,’ Marcus said, his lazy drawl making the woman’s face jerk from Peta to the man following behind. The man who, until now, had stood in the background and had not been noticed. Marcus. ‘I believe the lease for this office space is soon up for renegotiation,’ Marcus drawled. ‘As landlord I expect a certain professional standard of my tenants. Peta had an appointment at ten this morning and she’s still waiting. To have disgruntled clients hanging around my office space is not what I wish in my buildings.’

He motioned to a chair. ‘Peta, if you’d like to sit down…’ He gave the secretary a glimmer of a mockery of his smile-the sort of smile that had made many a business opponent come close to bursting a blood vessel in entirely appropriate anxiety. ‘We’ll wait,’ he told the woman. ‘Tell Mr Higgins that we’re here and we’ll wait for as long as it takes.’

Attila’s eyes had been flat and cold before. Now, suddenly, they looked like those of a goldfish. A goldfish that was swimming over an unplugged hole. There were very few people in this city who weren’t aware of Marcus’s power. It was legendary. ‘But…’

‘Just tell him,’ Marcus said wearily. ‘I’d like to get this over quickly. I hope Mr Higgins feels the same.’

It appeared Mr Higgins did. Five minutes later they were ushered apologetically into the great man’s presence.

To say Peta was tense was an understatement. This interview was overwhelmingly important to her, Marcus thought. The look on her face as she walked into Charles’s office said she intended to be calm, practical and efficient.

She obviously hadn’t counted on the store of anger that must have been walled up for so long that the moment she saw her cousin it could do nothing but burst.

Charles was seated behind a vast mahogany desk. Before he could stand, Peta had stalked across and slammed her hands palm downward on the gleaming surface, so hard she made the in-tray jump.

‘You uncaring toad,’ she spat, and Marcus blinked in astonishment. But Peta was obviously past caring.

‘You brought Hattie over here and she came because she thought you loved her. She hoped you loved her. But you didn’t. You abandoned her.’ Peta’s voice was loaded with contempt and with icy rage. ‘She could have died at home. With me. With Harry. With people who loved her. But you told her you wanted her here. You conned her into coming where she knew no one. How could you?’

‘My relationship with my mother has nothing to do with you,’ Charles snapped. The man was in his late thirties, florid, wearing a three-piece suit that was as sleazy as it was expensive, and he was obviously deeply disdainful of the woman before him. ‘I have no idea what you want from me, Peta, or why you’ve bothered with this appointment.’ He cast an uneasy glance at Marcus and then looked back at Peta. It was apparent that Marcus was the only reason he’d agreed to see her-the only reason he didn’t get up now and push her out the door. ‘Or how you’ve dragged Mr Benson into this.’

‘No one drags me anywhere,’ Marcus said softly. He hauled up a chair and sat, with the air of a man who was here for the entertainment.

‘This is family business,’ Charles told him, and Marcus gave him his very nicest smile.

‘Consider me Peta’s family. I’ve just elected myself. Peta, I hate to mention it but I don’t think haranguing Charles on his mistreatment of his mother-justified as it may be-is going to achieve a lot. Let’s just cut to the chase and get out of here. This place makes me nervous.’

Charles flushed. ‘You don’t have to stay.’

‘I’m with the lady. Peta, say what you need to.’

Peta bit her lip. She half turned towards him and Marcus was waiting for her. He met her look and he sent her a silent message.

Settle. Anger’s not going to achieve anything. What’s important?

Peta caught it. She fought for control, taking a deep breath. Moving forward.

‘The will…’ she began.

‘Ah, yes.’ Charles had had time to do a regroup, too. ‘The will.’ With another nervous glance at Marcus, Charles settled deeper into his leather chair. His huge desk was guaranteed to intimidate the most influential of clients, and he clearly had no intention of moving from behind its protective distance. ‘What on earth do you have to say about my mother’s will?’

‘Hattie meant to leave her half of the farm to me.’

‘Not so, cousin.’ Charles even smirked.

Why do I want to hit him? Marcus thought, and he had to force himself to stay still. To stay an uninvolved bystander.

‘Hattie lived at the farm for all her life,’ Peta was saying. ‘We all have. Everyone except you. You left twenty years ago. But the farm paid for your education. For your travel.’ She gazed around the opulent office. ‘I bet it subsidised this. Your costs have already bled us dry. You’ve taken half our profits for ever. It’s crazy that she left her half of the farm to you.’

‘I’m her son.’

‘But we’ve subsidised you with so much already and she knew I can’t afford to buy you out. That it’d force me to sell.’

‘That’s not my problem.’

‘No.’ She took a deep breath, obviously forcing herself to stay calm. ‘No, it’s not. And it shouldn’t be. All I’m asking… All I’m asking is that you’ll hold on to your half of the farm-let me keep farming it-until Harry’s of age.’

‘Harry being…’ He almost sneered but then appeared to remember that Marcus was watching and turned it somehow into a vaguely supercilious smile. ‘Harry being how old?’

‘Twelve.’

Twelve. In the background Marcus frowned, absorbing the information. It didn’t fit-did it? Surely Peta wasn’t old enough to have a twelve-year-old son?

Maybe he should have asked more questions.

‘We need to stay on the farm until Harry’s eighteen,’ Peta was saying, almost pleading. ‘Charles, you know how important the farm is to us all.’

‘It was never important to me.’

‘It paid for your education. It let you be what you wanted and I want Harry to have that choice, too. And it’s a really good investment,’ she told him. ‘I’m more than happy for you to keep taking half the profits, and the land is growing more valuable all the time.’

‘I’ve checked,’ he told her. ‘It’d sell for a fortune now. Because it’s near the sea it can be cut up into hobby farm allotments. You own half. We both stand to make a killing.’

‘We love the farm.’

‘Get over it. I’m selling.’

‘Charles-’

‘Look, if that’s all you have to say…’ He eyed Marcus with disquiet, obviously still wondering how on earth Marcus came to be involved. ‘You’re wasting my time.’

Peta swallowed. Her hands clenched and unclenched. But, looking on, Marcus saw the moment she realised the futility of pleading. He saw her shoulders sag.

He saw her accept defeat.

And it hurt. It hurt him as well as the girl he was watching. Why did he want to hit someone? Not just someone. Charles. The urge was almost overwhelming.

But Peta had moved on. To the next important thing. ‘Will you come to Hattie’s funeral tomorrow?’ she whispered.

‘Funerals aren’t my scene.’

‘Hattie was your mother.’

‘Yeah.’ Another sneer. ‘And she’s dead. I’m over it, just like you should be. And, as soon as the funeral’s over, the farm’s on the market. It’d be on the market today if it wasn’t for that clause.’

‘Clause?’ Marcus queried.

This was the sort of negotiation he was good at. He’d learned from long practice that it was better not to jump in early-to simply sit back, listen and absorb. Focus on essentials. And probe everything.

Charles flashed him an annoyed glance. ‘My mother put a stupid codicil in her will. I left before the lawyer finished, and she did it…’

‘Tell me about it,’ Marcus said gently and Charles glowered.

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘If I’m married then I inherit,’ Peta said, obviously distressed. ‘It makes no sense. Just before Hattie left to come here, I went out with one of the local farmers. Twice. It was enough to make Hattie think about me getting married. As if I could. But she thought… Well, she worried about me, my Auntie Hattie. She thought I’d spend my life caring for the family and not myself. So she must have thought she’d push. By putting in a stupid clause at the end. If I’m married then I’ll inherit. But it’s not an option.’

‘What-never?’

‘In a week?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Hattie… Well, she was terminally ill. She was a bit muddled, even before she left Australia. That was probably how Charles persuaded her to come. She’d have worried about me, but she was here in New York, alone, and Charles would have pushed her hard to leave him the farm. So she wrote a will leaving everything to Charles, but apparently, after Charles left her alone with the lawyer, she added a codicil. The codicil says if I’m married within a week of her dying then the farm reverts to me. But… A week? Maybe she meant a year. Maybe… Well, who knows what she meant, but she said a week. That’s by Wednesday.’ She turned to her cousin again, her eyes dulled with the knowledge of what he would say. She already knew.

‘Charles, please.’

‘Just leave. You’re wasting my time.’ Charles rose, smoothed his already too smooth waistcoat and walked around to the door. He was really overweight, Marcus noticed. Short. Pompous. A slime-ball. It was as much as he could do not to flinch as the little man stalked past him to open the door.

‘I’m sorry she’s wasted your time, Mr Benson,’ Charles told him. ‘I’m sorry she’s wasted mine. Go back to the farm, Peta, where you belong. Enjoy it for the last few weeks before it’s sold. But get used to it. It’s on the market the moment the week is up.’

‘I’m sorry I wasted your time.’

They’d been silent as they rode the lift to ground level. They emerged on to the street to brilliant sunshine and Peta blinked as if she couldn’t believe sun could exist in a place such as this.

‘I assume the farm is worth a lot,’ Marcus said mildly, and she blinked again.

‘What? Oh, yes. You heard what he said. It is.’

‘So you’ll be well off?’

‘Split…no. I won’t be well off.’

‘Do you have any professional training?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Do you have a career?’

‘Yes. I’m a farmer.’

A farmer. He might have known. Of course. ‘Can you get a job somewhere? Farming?’

‘Are you kidding? With four kids? Who’s going to take me on?’

‘Four kids?’ he said cautiously, and she shrugged as if it was none of his business. As indeed it wasn’t.

Or it shouldn’t be.

‘Look, I said I’m sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Enough. You’ve been really nice to me. Much nicer than I possibly could have hoped for. I’ve come over here and I’ve been with Hattie while she died. Thanks to you, I’ve seen Charles and I’ve asked him what I had to ask. I knew it was hopeless but I had to try. For the boys. Now I’m planning to bury my Auntie Hattie with all the love that I can, and then I’ll get on an aeroplane and return to Australia. There’s an end to it.’

‘You have four kids?’ He was stuck in a groove, he thought, but had to know. How old was she? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?

Four kids.

His eyes moved involuntarily to her waistline and he thought, no. No way.

She saw his gaze shift. ‘What are you staring at?’

‘Your figure,’ he admitted with a rueful smile. ‘You’ve held up pretty well for four kids.’

Her eyes widened. She looked stunned. And then her face, which had looked strained to the point of breaking, suddenly creased into laughter. A gorgeous chuckle rang out, making others on the pavement turn and stare.

She had the loveliest smile. The loveliest laugh.

‘You’re thinking I’m a single mum with four kids?’

‘Well…’

‘They’re my brothers,’ she told him. ‘Daniel, Christopher, William and Harry. Twenty, eighteen, fifteen and twelve in that order. All students. The farm supports them all.’ She caught herself. ‘Or, I guess, I support them all. They help. They’re great kids but it’s mostly over to me. Until now. Now I guess the capital will pay for their education but heaven knows where we’ll live. The university vacations are four months long. That’s when we’re a family. And Harry loves the farm so much. It’ll break his heart if we have to leave.’

Silence. Marcus stared at her in disbelief.

Four brothers? She was supporting four brothers?

Good grief! So great a load on such slim shoulders. He winced and she managed a smile. Her laughter had gone again. The burden was back in place.

‘I’ve said it before. It’s my problem. Not yours.’

‘You could always marry.’ His voice was still faint with shock and she gave a rueful smile.

‘By Wednesday? I don’t think so. It was a crazy codicil made by a confused old woman who would have been desperate to make things right for everyone. Which was always going to be impossible.’ She took his hand in hers and shook-a warm, firm handshake that was a shake of dismissal. ‘Thank you very much for helping me, Mr Benson. You’ve done more than enough and I’m really grateful. Goodbye.’

And that was that. She turned and manoeuvred her crutches away from him, limping down the pavement, which was crowded with late afternoon shoppers.

She stood out, he thought, and it wasn’t just her crutches. In truth, it wasn’t her crutches at all. It was her flame hair. Her figure. The lovely curve of her slender neck. And her strength. The way she braced her shoulders, as if expecting to be struck.

It was so like David and Goliath, he thought again, but she had no slingshot. She had no weapon of any kind.

He stood and watched her go. He’d been dismissed. She was asking nothing of him.

She was on her own.

He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t have a clue what he was doing-what he was saying-but he knew only that he had to do it.

‘Peta, stop,’ he called, and she paused and half turned towards him.

‘Yes?’ She had the air of someone who’d already moved on. She looked slight and pale and somehow almost ethereal. As if any moment she’d vanish.

She could, he realised. He had this one moment to prevent it or she’d be gone and he need never see her again.

Which was what he wanted-wasn’t it? He didn’t get involved. He never got involved. He’d made a vow a long time ago and he’d never been tempted to break that vow.

Until now. Until the choice was to break the vow or to watch Peta take the next few steps and take her burden back to Australia.

He didn’t even know what her burden was. He hardly knew her. He had a corporate deal to stitch up; he had a date tonight with a woman most men would kill to be seen with; he had a life in New York…

Peta was watching him, her pixie face questioning. Waiting. Waiting for release so she could disappear.

He couldn’t give her that release. And there was only one way to stop her disappearing.

‘There is a way you can be married by Wednesday,’ he called, and the shoppers around them paused in astonishment.

Peta paused in astonishment.

‘How?’ she called, but maybe she hadn’t called it. Maybe her voice was a whisper. They were twenty yards apart and there were people between. He saw her lips move. He saw the thought in her eyes that he was holding her up for nothing.

But he wasn’t. He knew what he had to say and when he said it, it sounded right. Even inevitable.

‘You can marry me.’