'You can't be serious.' Katie stared up at him helplessly. 'I mean…' Her voice trailed away as she found herself utterly lost for words, her face portraying her horror at the suggestion.
'On the contrary.' His brief smile was quite without humour and didn't touch his eyes at all.
'But why on earth would you want to marry me?' she asked weakly. 'You must know loads of women who would be only too pleased to jump at such an offer.'
'Must I?' He considered her quietly through narrowed eyes. 'Perhaps that's the problem.'
'I don't understand.'
'Then let me explain it to you.' He indicated the chair that she had vacated with a wave of his hand and as she sat down he turned to look out of the window with his back to her and his dark face hidden from her gaze. 'I'm a wealthy man, Katie, a very wealthy man, and that in itself brings a certain set of…difficulties. As you just pointed out, a certain type of woman who is looking for an easy ride for life would appreciate a tailor-made meal ticket to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed.' The deep voice dripped sarcasm. 'I want children but I want something more than a clothes-horse as their mother, you understand?'
'No.' As he turned to face her she shook her head slowly. 'I don't. Surely you must have met someone you liked, someone who would be suitable—'
'You're suitable.' The piercing grey eyes were unreadable. 'You are beautiful, spirited, and your attitude to life and values are in line with what I would look for in the mother of my son.'
'Your son?' This was getting out of hand, she thought desperately. 'Look, I really don't think—'
'Joe will never be able to have children,' Carlton continued quietly as though she hadn't spoken. 'The succession of the Reef name is down to me and I do not intend to leave my estate to a cats' home.' He eyed her consideringly. 'I am thirty-six years of age and I feel the time is right to settle down and produce a family but as yet I haven't met a f
emale I would consider suitable—or I hadn't until you came on the horizon. Besides which—' He stopped as she twisted restlessly.
'But we don't even like each other.' She spoke quickly before she lost her nerve, still unable to believe that he was really serious. 'You can't possibly think a marriage between us would work? It's… Well, it's—'
'The only way out of your problems,' he finished coldly, the dark veil that had settled over his face as she had spoken masking his thoughts. 'Unless of course you would prefer to see your father lose everything he has worked for all his life? The decision has to be yours.'
'But we don't even like each other,' she said again, her voice urgent. 'And I don't want to marry anyone.'
'I do not dislike you, Katie.' Just for a moment something dark and fierce burst in the depths of the grey eyes and then a shutter banked down the fire and his face was ruthlessly implacable. 'And, like I said, I want you. You cannot deny that there's a certain physical chemistry between us?'
'I—' She stopped abruptly. How could she explain to an experienced man of the world like him that she had thought every woman reacted the way she had to his maleness, that her response to him would have been something he would have expected, nothing out of the ordinary?
'If the physical side of a marriage is OK everything else will fall into place,' he continued smoothly, 'and with us it would be, I can assure you.'
'How can you know?' she asked weakly. 'You don't—'
As he pulled her up and into his arms she was too dazed by recent events to resist, although her body tensed, expecting a fierce, overwhelming assault on her senses. But his kiss was delicate, meltingly, deliriously delicate, as he traced the outline of her mouth and her closed eyelids with soft, butterfly kisses that were achingly sweet.
And then his mouth found the hollow of her throat where a pulse was beating frantically and she heard her little moan of desire with a throb of embarrassment even as she tilted her head further, allowing him greater access.
This was crazy… But the thought couldn't compete with what his mouth and body were doing to hers. Sensation after sensation washed across her closed eyes as a trembling warmth shivered through her limbs. He was good at this, oh, he was very, very good, she thought helplessly as his fingers explored the length of her spine in a sensuous, warm caress that made her aware of every inch of her body, her breasts heavy and full as they pressed against his hard chest and her lower stomach achingly hot.
'So perfect…' As his mouth took hers in a deeper, penetrating kiss he moved her more firmly into his body, his arousal hard and dominant against the softness of her hips, leaving her in no doubt as to what she was doing to him. 'Now do you doubt it?' He moved her slightly from him as he spoke to look down into her face, his eyes glittering. 'We would be good together, Katie, I know it.'
She came back to reality with a hard jolt as she opened her eyes to stare into the dark, triumphant face in front of her. All this had been a cold-blooded exercise in proving a point? But of course, what else? And she had fallen into his arms like a ripe plum? Self-disgust was bitter on her tongue as she adjusted her clothes with shaking hands, her cheeks burning.
'Do you doubt it?' he asked again, his voice almost expressionless now as she glared at him before turning away, mortally embarrassed.
'I don't know.' She shook her head blindly as she walked over to the fire, holding out her hands to the warm blaze as she kept her face in profile to him. 'I've never—'
She stopped abruptly and then forced herself to go on. He had to know, after all. He'd probably assumed that she had slept with other boyfriends, that she was at least a little experienced. 'I'm not used to the physical side of a relationship,' she managed stiffly, her face hotter than the fire now. 'I've nothing to judge by.'
There was utter silence in the room for several moments and then he spoke again, his voice quiet and low. 'Does that mean what I think it means?'
'Yes.' She wanted to curl up and die with embarrassment but the need to justify her statement was paramount. 'And not because I haven't had offers,' she said tightly. 'I just haven't happened to meet anyone I liked enough, that's all, and for the last few years my job hasn't left me much time for socialising.'
'You don't have to apologise—'
'I'm not!' She interrupted his quiet voice sharply as she turned to face him, expecting mockery, contempt, even derision, but the hard face was completely expressionless— curiously so. 'I'm not,' she reiterated more quietly. 'But you're used to more experienced women. I wouldn't be able to…' Her voice trailed off as she found herself completely unable to finish what she wanted to say.