Carole Mortimer - To Woo A Wife

‘The last I heard, Australia was still part of the world,’ he said dryly.

‘It’s not the location that’s relevant, Jarrett,’ Stephen said softly.

No, making his fortune had been his driving force for the last twenty years, the people he had associated with picked out for their own influences, or otherwise, in the business world he mixed in. Models—even ones as beautiful as Abbie!—hadn’t been of any interest to him whatsoever. Hadn’t been... Because he was certainly interested in Abbie now.

‘What happened to her after those two years of acclaim? ’ he probed softly, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

‘She gave up modelling,’ Stephen supplied unhelpfully.

Most unhelpfully, as far as Jarrett was concerned. He hadn’t been this interested in a woman in years, and the fact that she seemed so damned elusive—A sudden thought struck him. ‘She isn’t married, is she, Stephen?’ he grated harshly. It would be just his luck if she were; married women were definitely a no-no for him.

His own mother’s alley-cat behaviour, and the pain it had caused his father, had made him decide long ago that he would never interfere in another couple’s relationship. His parents’ turbulent marriage was also the reason he had decided he would never fall in love, never marry. If any man tried to intrude on his marriage, he knew he wouldn’t react as mildly as his father had done all those years, that he—

What the hell was he doing even thinking about marriage? It was complete anathema to him, as evidenced by his earlier conversation about desserts, and the attraction of each of them.

He recalled with pleasure how Abbie had answered all of his derisive comments with a jibe of her own. Abbie...! Damn it, he was doing it again. If only she weren’t so damned intriguing...!

‘Would it bother you if she were married?’ Stephen answered his question, his expression deliberately bland.

‘Not at all,’ Jarrett snapped, impatient with himself for dropping his guard enough to let Stephen know how interesting he found the enigmatic Abbie; he should have remembered earlier what a damned nuisance Stephen could be when he got an idea in his head. And the last thing Jarrett needed at the moment was a matchmaking Stephen! ‘Just because you’re in the throes of newly married bliss at the moment,’ he scorned, ‘doesn’t mean the rest of us have to join you!’

Stephen chuckled at Jarrett’s aggression, not fooled for a moment, turning slightly in his chair to look across the restaurant. ‘Ah, here come the ladies now,’ he said admiringly. ‘Don’t they make a striking couple? And for the record, Jarrett,’ he leant forward to murmur softly when he received no response from the other man, ‘Abbie isn’t married!’

‘I told you, it doesn’t—’ Jarrett broke off his angry retort as the women reached their table, his frown turning to a scowl as he stood up and noticed a man, seated alone a couple of tables away, who couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Abbie.

Damn it, the woman drew admiring male looks like a magnet! Any man stupid enough to become involved with her would need a chain attached to her ankle to make sure she didn’t—God, he was doing it again; he had no intention of becoming involved with her, so why should he give a damn about any other idiot who did?

‘Excellent timing,’ Stephen told the two ladies as they all sat down and their first course was served to them.

Jarrett took one look across the table at Abbie, and as quickly looked away again. God, no woman should have a mouth as sensuous as hers! And the peach lipgloss she had applied to those pouting lips only made him want, to kiss her all the more.

And he did want to kiss her!

In fact, he wanted to do a lot more than kiss her...! Thank goodness he had been able to hold the white linen napkin in front of him when he stood up while the two women resumed their seats, otherwise the whole restaurant would have been aware of the complete betrayal of his body. He was behaving like a schoolboy with his first crush, damn it!

The man seated two tables away, although giving the impression of eating his own meal, was still watching Abbie, surreptitiously. And Jarrett, again like a schoolboy, he acknowledged angrily, wanted to punch him on the nose for just daring to look at her!

‘Are the ribs not to your liking, Jarrett?’

He looked at Abbie with completely blank eyes; even the husky tone to her voice was faintly erotic. Damn it, no woman should be this sensually beautiful. ‘What?’ he rasped aggressively.

The slight widening of violet-blue eyes was the only visible indication she gave of recognising his manner. ‘I merely wondered if there was something wrong with your food; you don’t appear to be eating it,’ she pointed out lightly.

He looked down at the untouched starter in front of him, across at the other three half-eaten plates of food on the table, forcing himself to relax, inwardly chastising himself for his lapse. The sooner he got this meal over with, the sooner he would be able to get away. From Abbie.

‘I’m sure the ribs are going to be excellent,’ he answered. ‘After all, this is a Sutherland Hotel, isn’t it?’ he added derisively. ‘Although,’ he continued, ‘it isn’t much of a recommendation for the place when the part-owner doesn’t even stay in her own hotels!’ He bit into his food, and, as he had already surmised, the ribs were mouth-wateringly delicious.

Sutherland Hotels were known worldwide for their welcoming service and excellent restaurants; everything about this hotel spoke of its exclusivity, from the reception to the beautifully furnished suites of rooms. But the woman who dominated the boardroom, Daniel Sutherland’s widow, never stayed in them...

According to Daniel Sutherland’s daughter Cathy, the eldest of two children from his first marriage, Sabina had been the daughter of one of her father’s employees. On her marriage to Daniel Sutherland, she’d very quickly learnt the advantages of having such a wealthy husband. Since his death two years ago, she’d never demeaned herself enough to stay in one of the family hotels, always finding private accommodation close by—on a grand scale!—when she was on one of her regular visits as guardian of the major shareholder in the family business. Sabina’s young daughter Charlotte was the real Sutherland heir; Sabina was merely a caretaker until her child achieved the age of twenty-one. But until that time the woman obviously intended to milk the situation for all it was worth!

It was all too easy to see why Cathy, and her younger brother Danny, resented the hold their stepmother had on their inheritance through her own daughter’s shares in the company. Daniel Sutherland must have been totally besotted with his second wife to have left his will in the way that he had—

‘You’re talking of Sabina Sutherland?’ Abbie prompted coolly.

‘Who else?’ he scorned. ‘She’s staying in a private ski-lodge somewhere up the mountain—’

‘And how do you know that?’ She looked at him frowningly.

He shrugged. ‘I asked around.’

Violet-blue eyes widened. ‘And someone here, at the hotel, told you where she was staying?’

‘Not here, Abbie.’ He gave a smile. ‘I’m sure giving out that sort of information about their employer is more than their job is worth! No, I asked around, discreetly, in London, before coming out here to Whistler.’

He had suffered several boring evenings listening to Cathy Sutherland’s bitterness about her stepmother, withstanding her more than obvious attempts to deepen their relationship to physical intimacy, attempts he had of course deftly outmanoeuvred—he never mixed business with his private life!—before he was able to find out that the Black Widow, as Cathy called her stepmother, would be in Canada the second week of January, skiing with her daughter, Charlotte.

There was obviously little sisterly love between Cathy and Charlotte either, Cathy referring to her half-sibling as ‘the brat’. There had to be an age gap between the two sisters, and at thirty Cathy was already starting to lose her bloom, her blonde beauty, after years of grievance, taking on a certain hardness that was far from attractive, so the existence of a young and probably pretty half-sister wouldn’t go down too well with someone like her. Besides which, having grown up in the lap of luxury, with a mother who was patently money-grasping herself, Charlotte Sutherland was probably a brat!

‘You’ve done your research on this woman, then, Jarrett?’ Alison prompted curiously.

He shrugged. ‘I’m only interested in her business life, not her personal one.’ Although Cathy would have been only too happy to go on for hours about the woman her father had married after the death of her own mother twenty years ago, if he’d let her! But as far as Jarrett was concerned it was just another example of why marriage wasn’t for him. He could imagine nothing worse than being married for his money. By all accounts, Daniel Sutherland had been an intelligent man, and he had still been fooled. For some years, it seemed.

‘You still haven’t told us what business you have with her?’ Abbie said casually.

He shook his head, leaning back in his chair, his expression closed. ‘I think I’ve said altogether too much on the subject already,’ he said firmly. ‘It must have been the champagne we drank earlier to toast your marriage.’ He addressed the other couple.

‘Talking of which...” Stephen signalled the waiter, requesting another bottle of champagne for the four of them.

Which gave Jarrett the few minutes’ respite he needed to gather his scattered wits together. He had said enough already, revealed more than necessary of himself and his reasons for being here in Canada. For a man who was usually private to the point of rudeness—even Cathy Sutherland, so free with the information about the stepmother she detested, hadn’t known why he was so interested in her!—he felt uncomfortable with the knowledge that he had been provoked into revealing that much to the three people present.

It was Abbie’s fault, of course. While giving every appearance of being open and beautiful, she had nevertheless managed not to reveal a single fact about herself, but had goaded Jarrett, he now realised, into talking about himself in an effort to get her to open up about herself.

He tried to think what he did know about her. She had once been a model—years ago, if they coincided with the period he had spent in Australia. She travelled a great deal, and not through choice, if her dislike of it was to be believed. If she didn’t like it so much, then why do it at all? She—

He was becoming obsessed with the woman, he realised angrily. And for a man who, at best, viewed women with teasing affection, and at worst with cold disdain, it wasn’t a feeling he was particularly comfortable with!

‘I think you have an admirer, Abbie.’ He dryly changed the subject.

She arched dark brows in cool dismissal. ‘But we hardly know each other, Jarrett,’ she returned just as dryly.

Golden eyes narrowed on the ivory perfection of her face; was she mocking him? ‘I wasn’t referring to myself,’ he bit back, aware that he sounded rude and disdainful.

She frowned as his meaning became clear to her, looking about them with apprehensive eyes.

And, as she did so, it suddenly hit Jarrett that this woman was running away from something. Or someone...

At the same time as he realised this, Jarrett felt a previously unknown protectiveness. Towards Abbie. A woman, as she had already said, that he hardly knew! But despite her previous cool assurance there was a vulnerability about her at this moment, an air of uncertainty as she worriedly searched the faces of the other diners in the restaurant.