Page 64 of Bride Under Contract

‘Ever?’

‘Never.’ There was no one important enough—he very deliberately kept it that way. ‘Now, are we going to do this?’

‘Yes.’

Grace nodded, wondering how to ‘do this’—how to sleep with someone at night who was completely unavailable by day.

A man who didn’t even notice the effort you’d made.

Even if he’d paid for it.

A man who, without effort, always made her smile.

‘Simi, Tengku—this is Grace.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you.’

They were surely not in the top one hundred most beautiful people—they were portly and happy and normal... Well, apart from their surroundings and their wealth.

And as she took a seat, and Tengku tucked a napkin under his ribs, she caught Carter’s eyes.

Got you! said his smile.

He very possibly had.

CHAPTER NINE

‘CARTER, LOOK!’

It was his father calling to him again, and he turned, saw Hugo looking back at him. Only it was Grace carrying him into the jungle rather than his mother.

And it couldn’t be his father calling out, Carter realised, because his father lay face-down in the water with his arms spread out.

Or was that Grace floating?

His eyes snapped open. He was unsure for a moment if he’d shouted out, but presumably not, given that Grace lay wrapped around him like bindweed.

He’d have to remind her again that he liked space in bed.

Especially if they were going to be doing this for a year!

Carter gulped in air, went to move her so he could sit on the edge of the bed, catch his breath and drink water. But his heart was slowing down, and her skin was warm and alive.

‘Carter...?’

She lifted her head from his chest, and it was like the first time they’d met. For her eyes were open, yet she was more asleep than awake. ‘What time...?’

‘Early,’ he said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

He felt the weight of her head as it sank back down on his chest, and the tickle of her hair on his chin didn’t even irritate him.

He’d thought the nightmares had returned because he’d been in Borneo, yet he’d been back in KL for more than a week.

It was the teething ring unsettling him, he was certain, even in the dressing room and behind the solid walls of the hotel safe, it was pulsing like a radioactive alarm.

It was the anniversary of his family’s deaths coming up, and he was seriously considering once more asking Arif to return it to the jungle.

He’d been too sideswiped at the time to think straight, and had let him load it onto the boat.

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