Husband By Arrangement. SARA WOOD
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usual sweet self. You’re a sharp cookie, remember,’ Debbie warned as she finally drove Maddy to the airport.
‘Dex would hate that,’ Maddy mused. ‘I didn’t see him very often after his eighth birthday when he went to boarding-school in England, and I was only four at the time. But I remember he was very reclusive and aloof—’
‘With bottleglass specs and as thin as a reed,’ Debbie reminded her.
‘I’m sure he’s very nice,’ Maddy conceded kindly, twiddling a spiky piece of hair. ‘But I’d never marry someone I didn’t love.’
Her husband would have to be very understanding, she thought. Her restless hands stilled. Someone who didn’t mind that she couldn’t have children. She had come to terms with that a long time ago, after the infection had ruined her chances of motherhood, even though the inner ache, the wistful longing, would be with her always. What man would be content with just her, and no child to call his own?
‘You’re pretty tough, aren’t you? Even though you might seem quiet and submissive to people who don’t know you,’ Debbie said admiringly. ‘I don’t know how you’ve coped, being head cook and bottle-washer to your grandfather all these years. He’s a bit of a tyrant, isn’t he?’
‘He needed me,’ Maddy said simply. ‘And I learnt to keep quiet and get on with things when the business he started up over here failed and we lost all our money.’
‘Rotten for you.’
‘Worse for him.’ She remembered how hard it had been for her grandfather to be poor. The Fitzgeralds had settled a large sum on him in exchange for his share of the plant nursery in Portugal. But all of that money had been swallowed up by debts. ‘If only Grandpa didn’t feel such a violent resentment towards the Fitzgerald family!’ she sighed. ‘He thinks that half of Dex’s inheritance should rightly be mine. That’s why he’s so determined that the two of us should marry.’
Debbie looked puzzled. ‘Why does he resent the Fitzgerald millions?’
Maddy fell silent for a moment. ‘He blames them for the car accident that caused the deaths of my parents and Dex’s,’ she explained sadly. ‘Our two families shared the same rambling farmhouse in Portugal. Apparently Dex’s mother flung herself at my father. If she hadn’t, Grandpa says, there would have been no accident whatsoever. We’d be wealthy, both sets of parents would be alive and we’d all still live in Portugal.’
‘Can’t dwell in the past,’ Debbie said, matter-of-fact as ever. ‘You’ve got a future to plan. Almost there. Remember: stay in character. Do things that are socially unacceptable.’
Squaring her shoulders, Maddy resolutely faced up to the challenge ahead.
‘Like slurping my soup?’ she suggested.
The car rolled to a stop. ‘Perfect. Or do the cancan on the table. Eat spaghetti with your fingers. Anything. Just come back single!’
Maddy slid out, moving carefully to keep her balance in the gold killer heels. Two male passers-by leapt over to help her with her luggage and she beamed her thanks at them. Their eyes glazed over and she saw Debbie giving her a conspiratorial wink.
‘Go for it,’ her friend said fondly, hugging her. ‘Show time! Have fun.’
‘I will!’
Maddy felt excited. She’d quickly scotch any ideas of a loveless marriage and then demand to hear the Fitzgeralds’ version of the events leading to the fatal car accident.
However hard she’d probed, her grandfather had refused to explain why her loving father had run off with Dex’s mother without saying goodbye. There had to be a good reason—and this was her opportunity to discover it.
Her eyes sparkled. For once in her life, she had a wonderful sense of taking control of her own life. It was exhilarating to feel so free.
With a wave to her approving friend, she graciously allowed one of the young men to push the luggage trolley and set off after him, her hips swinging exuberantly in the tight leather skirt.
This was an adventure, she thought. And she was determined to enjoy it.
CHAPTER TWO
DEXTER’S manic schedule meant that he’d come to the airport grimy and unshaven. Sourly he waited as the passengers from the London flight filed past, though he barely saw them, not even the admiring glances from women as they passed.
His mind was elsewhere: on the charred ruins of the Quinta, that had once been the Fitzgerald home.
He didn’t want to be here. Hell, he didn’t even want to be in the country.
Seeing a plump, timid-looking woman in ill-fitting clothes, he raised his placard with exhausted resignation. She caught his eye, brightened and then looked at the hastily felt-tipped name: Maddy Cook. Looking disappointed, the woman continued dolefully on her way through Faro Airport. Not her, then.
The last stragglers wandered out and he was on his own. It seemed that Maddy wasn’t coming to the Algarve after all, and he felt such a huge sense of relief that he might have burst into song if he hadn’t been so dog-tired and disinclined for anything remotely resembling merriment.
Then, just as he turned to leave, his attention was caught by a crowd of chattering, laughing men who’d surged through from Customs. Dexter saw that they were rugby players on tour, complete with team kit, coach, acolytes and, he noted appreciatively, a team mascot.
The mascot’s burgundy head bobbed up and down amid the ruck, almost lost under the welter of burly arms and giant hands. But between the mountainous shoulders and tree-trunk thighs Dex had glimpsed her dazzling grin and stunning legs. For the first time in a week his stony face cracked with the faint hint of a smile.
‘Hey, babe, here’s your meeter-and-greeter!’ shouted one of the giants, pointing directly at him.
Dex turned around, expecting to see—somewhere behind him—a welcoming committee of seven-foot giants in striped jerseys bulging with muscles. He saw nothing of the kind.
And when he turned back he noticed that the scrum had parted to reveal the mascot in all her glory. Despite his hurry to leave, he paused, utterly arrested by the startling sight.
She was like an exotic butterfly, shimmering with glitter and iridescence. Obvious, for sure. Not his type. Yet something about her joyous exuberance and lovely face touched his rock-bottom spirits and lifted the weight that had settled so leadenly in his mind.
He blinked. The butterfly was coming in his direction, her smoky eyes fixed with eager interest on the placard he was still holding.
His mouth dried. It couldn’t be. Wrong shape. Wrong personality…
‘Hi,’ she said breathily. ‘I’m Maddy. Are you the driver?’
Maddy? He stared. Impossible! And yet there were the enormous grey eyes, though they were sparkling instead of how he remembered them—apprehensive and all too ready to shed tears.
There was something vaguely familiar in that mouth, too, even if the fine cheekbones and delicately shaped nose bore no resemblance to the podgy, childish features he remembered.
‘You are my driver?’ she prompted with an extraordinarily sweet smile, enunciating clearly and making steering motions with her hands.
‘Uh,’ he said inadequately, wondering how anyone short, plump and permanently anxious could ever have hatched into this extraordinary, confident bombshell of a woman.
She put her head on one side and looked uncertain.
‘Oh, dear. You’ve no idea what I’m saying, have you? My Portuguese is horribly rusty. Do you speak any English?’ she asked with slow care.
He’d thought that nothing could surprise him any more. He’d travelled the world. Been startled, shocked and scared out of his wits. One broken