Page 13 of Marriage Bargain with His Innocent
‘No one would ever believe that you would wear anything as casual as flowered shirts and flip-flops, Matias. Even when you’re relaxing you give the impression that you’d really rather be working.’
‘I had no idea you could be so accurate when it came to reading me. Maybe there’s more substance to our relationship than meets the eye...’
‘We don’thavea relationship—and I won’t be dressing like that woman you dispatched yesterday.’
‘I’m shocked you’re not kicking up more of a fight over this,’ Matias admitted with honesty.
‘Is that what you think I do? Kick up a fight over everything?’
That stung for some reason, because there was an element of truth in it. She knew that she picked at him, but she quickly told herself that he deserved it. He hardly ever came down to visit his mother...he always made it abundantly clear that he had moved on and was bored with the place he came from...he hadn’t even shown up to his dad’s funeral!
And yet so much about him refused to be corralled into neat little boxes.
‘Not everything,’ Matias conceded. ‘At least not in the company of other people. I’ve seen you laugh, so I know that when it comes to picking fights I’m the special one in your life. I get the folded arms and the scowls.’ He grinned, watched her colour rise, perversely enjoying it.
‘We’ve had our differences...’ Georgina could feel her cheeks suffused with colour. ‘But it’s only because I’ve always been close to your parents.’ She hesitated, then found herself confiding, ‘I adored mine, of course, but I didn’t have loads in common with them. I liked art and taking pictures and rummaging in the undergrowth. And you know my parents, Matias...they were all about intellectual pursuits. I think they pretty much packed it in with me when I hit my teens.’
This was something Georgina had never confessed to anyone, and she was surprised that she was confessing it now—especially to Matias—but then wasn’t that part and parcel of his compelling personality? So cool, so controlled, soannoying. And yet...and yet...he could engage with her on levels no other man she had ever met had been able to.
‘Meaning...?’
Georgina laughed, and that did something to Matias’s libido again, reminded him of those sexy, unexpected little curves he had glimpsed the night before.
‘I stopped getting big, thick books for birthday presents,’ she said drily, ‘and my mum stopped slipping law, international politics and university into the conversation.’
‘I never knew you were bothered by that,’ Matias murmured, an element of surprise in his voice.
‘A bit. But they were great when it came to supporting my decision to go into photography.’
‘Taking pictures of my parents’ produce...?’
‘It was a start, Matias. I have a steady stream of work now, but I can’t afford to splash out on a new wardrobe of clothes I’ll only be wearing for two minutes.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of letting you put your hand in your pocket to buyanything,’ he said flatly.
Their eyes collided and her heart skipped a beat. Heat rushed through her body and her mouth went dry. He really was so very beautiful. That raven-black hair curling at the nape of his neck, the sensuality of his mouth, the lazy intensity of his eyes...
‘And if,’ he continued, ‘my mother suspected that you had, she would know for sure that this is a sham—because no woman of mine has ever been expected to pay for anything when I’m around.’
But I’m not your woman, Georgina thought confusedly.
‘And she would know that you’d bought your own clothes because you wouldn’t be able to resist buying items that are two sizes too big.’
‘That’s out of order!’
Matias laughed. ‘Entirely,’ he murmured, ‘but what’s the point in tiptoeing round the issue? Sexy, but refined is the image I’m thinking you should go for.’
Georgina blanched. In what world could she go from homely tosexy, but refined?
Aghast, she realised that while they had been talking the driver had been skilfully manoeuvring through the London traffic and had now pulled to a smooth stop at the back of the expensive department store.
She was channelled out of the car and shepherded to the designer floor where, somehow, a personal shopper had been summoned to assist them.
‘I’ll sit in on this,’ Matias said,sotto voce. ‘If we’re going to do this then, like I said, we’re going to do it well. And it starts with clothes.’
He sat on a velvet-upholstered sofa with every semblance of keen interest. He didn’t even open his computer. He watched in silence as clothes were brought out for inspection—clothes that she would, presumably, wear for him.
He watched as she resentfully paraded in them, chucking aside anything that looked too small, too short or too tight or showed off her boobs too much. Becausehemight go for that look, but Rose would know in an instant thatshenever would.
