Page 43 of Bride Under Contract

‘It sounds as if you are,’ he said.

‘I hope so,’ Grace sighed.

She was looking out to the dense jungle and she sounded as lost as he had surely felt back then.

Lost and alone.

Standing next to Grace in the silence of the early morning, for the first time he remembered hauling himself up a tree, searching for the familiar sight of the banyan. Desperate for direction...for some way out...

And he could give her that now.

‘Grace?’

She turned at the sound of her name.

‘You know I don’t do relationships.’

‘Carter...’ She smiled and it reached her gorgeous green eyes. ‘I think we’ve established that already. Look, I get it.’ She gave a low laugh. ‘Don’t worry. I leave tomorrow...’

‘What if I suggested we marry?’

Grace laughed again, only this time she rolled her eyes.

‘I’m completely serious,’ he insisted.

‘I am not getting married to you because of some obscure clause in your grandfather’s will. And if it’s last night you’re worried about, then don’t be. I’m probably not pregnant.’

‘That’s a completely separate issue,’ Carter interrupted. ‘What if I offered you two million dollars?’

‘Yes, please!’ She immediately laughed once more—but then she must have seen his serious expression, because her smile and her laughter faded. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘Well, I do. You need to secure your mother’s future.’

‘I’ve never once said that.’

‘Am I wrong, though?’

Her silence was her answer.

‘I need a solution, and fast, and if my guess is correct, you need money.’

Grace swallowed. Only now was it dawning on her that this really was a serious proposal—although not in the least the romantic kind.

‘No, absolutely not. Anyway, I’m needed at home.’

‘I’m aware. I have an apartment in London, and an office... I tend to spend a lot of time in New York, but in the next few months I’ll be in Janana a lot, so we wouldn’t be in each other’s pockets.’

‘That’s not a marriage.’

‘On paper it would be—at least enough to meet the terms of the will.’

She felt colour suffuse her cheeks at this very cold summing up.

‘Grace,’ he insisted. ‘This is business.’

She frowned, because all the velvet of his words had gone.

He hadn’t been confiding in her about his past—he’d been telling her for a reason! Now, when he spoke, he was detached, and although his grey eyes met hers, they looked at her rather than beyond. The change was almost indecipherable, but either their gorgeous breakfast had turned into a meeting or, she realised, he’d considered it as such all along.

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