impossibly blue eyes, the patrician nose, the sensually sculpted mouth, the steely determined jaw. The lines of grief etched into his skin that made him seem older than he was. At thirty-three, he was in the prime of his life. Wealthy, talented, a world-renowned landscape architect—you could not find a more eligible bachelor…or one so determined to avoid commitment.
‘Think about it, Layla.’ His tone was deep with a side note of roughness that made a faint shiver course through her body. A shiver of awareness. A shiver of longing that could no longer be restrained in its secret home.
Layla picked up her basket from the floor and held it in front of her body like a shield. Was he teasing her? Making fun of her? He must surely know she wasn’t marriage material—certainly not for someone like him. She was about as far away from Susannah as you could get. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
His hand came down to touch her on the forearm, and even through two layers of clothing her skin tingled. She looked down at his long strong fingers and disguised a swallow. She could count on one hand the number of times he had touched her over the years and still have fingers left over. His touch was unfamiliar and strange, alien almost, and yet her body reacted like a crocus bulb to spring sunshine.
‘I’m serious,’ he said, looking at her with watchful intensity. ‘I need a temporary wife to save Bellbrae from being sold or destroyed and who better than someone who loves this place as much as I do?’
But you don’t love me.
The words came into her head at random but she had no way of getting rid of them. They were like gate-crashers at a party, unwelcome, intrusive. Forbidden. Yep, she definitely had to switch reading genres. Layla slipped out of his hold and moved a couple of steps back, still holding her basket in front of her body. ‘I’m sure you can find someone much more suitable to be your wife than me.’
Someone beautiful.
Someone glamourous.
Someone perfect.
‘Layla, I’m not talking about a real marriage here.’ His frown was back, his voice as steady and calm as a patient teacher speaking to a slow student. ‘It would be a marriage on paper and would only last a year, max. We wouldn’t even have to go through the charade of a big wedding. We could marry privately with only the minimum witnesses required to make it legal.’
Layla rolled her lips together, her gaze slipping away from his. Her mind was wheeling round and round like a hamster on performance-enhancing drugs. A short-term marriage to Logan McLaughlin to save Bellbrae. To save her great-aunt and Flossie the geriatric dog. Layla would wear Logan’s ring but not be a real bride. Given her dating record, it might be her only chance to be anyone’s bride. Could she agree to spend the year being ‘married’ to Logan? Living with him for all intents and purposes as if they had married for all the right reasons?
But who would ever believe she was the love of his life?
Layla brought her gaze back up to meet his. ‘Aren’t you worried what people might say? I mean, the upstairs-downstairs thing? I’m the housekeeper’s orphaned great-niece. You’re the Laird of the castle. I’m hardly what anyone would consider a suitable bride for you.’
His frown carved a trench between his midnight-blue eyes. ‘Why are you so hard on yourself? You’re a beautiful young woman. You have nothing to be ashamed of.’
Wow. A compliment.
A warm glow flooded through her body, her self-esteem waking from a coma. Beautiful, huh? That certainly wasn’t what her mirror told her, but then Logan had never seen the full extent of her scars. But a compliment was a compliment and she was going to take it at face value for once. She brought her gaze back to his, keeping her tone even. ‘And what happens when the year is up?’
‘We have the marriage annulled and get on with our lives as before.’
Layla put down the cleaning basket and wiped her suddenly damp palms on her thighs. She had suffered temptation before and mostly resisted. Mostly. But walking past a bowl of her great-aunt’s Belgian chocolate mousse was clearly not in the same league as agreeing to be Logan’s temporary bride. She would be in close contact with him, not sleeping with him but living with him.
Sharing his life for a Whole Year.
How was she going to stop herself from developing feelings for him? Feelings that were already lurking in the background like a secret smouldering coal that only needed a tiny whiff of oxygen to leap into a scorching hot flame. She could feel it now—the slow burn of attraction that made her aware of every movement he made. Every time he took a breath, every time he frowned, every time his gaze meshed with hers.
‘I don’t expect you to do this for nothing, Layla. I’ll make sure you are financially well compensated.’ He named a figure that made her eyebrows shoot up so high they nearly flew off her face.
Now was probably not the time to tell him she would have done it free. There was probably never going to be that time. Logan had loved and loved deeply and had tragically lost that love. No woman would ever take the place of his fiancée and any woman who thought she could would be a silly romantic fool.
But the amount of money he was offering would allow Layla to expand her cleaning business into a household concierge service as well. She could take on more staff so she didn’t have to do so much of the physical work, which increasingly tired her. It would mean she could be at the helm of her business playing to her strengths instead of her weakness.
Layla raised her chin, keen to portray a cool and steady composure she was nowhere near feeling. ‘I’d like a day or two to think about it.’ She was proud of the evenness of her tone given the pitty-pat, pitty-pat hammering of her pulse.
His expression barely changed but she sensed a restrained relief sweeping through him. ‘Of course. It’s a big decision and not without its risks, which brings me to a difficult but necessary discussion.’
Layla knew where he was going with this and it annoyed her that he thought her so gauche for it to even be a possibility for her to fall in love with him. She was definitely no Jane Eyre. She might find him ridiculously attractive and her pulse might go a little crazy when he was around but that’s as far as it could ever go. As far as she would let it go. She had willpower, didn’t she? She would send it to boot camp ASAP.
She raised her brows in twin arcs of derision. ‘Oh, the one about me not getting any silly ideas about falling head over heels in love with you?’
Heels? Now that was the stuff of fantasy.
If he was taken aback by her bluntness, he didn’t show it. ‘I would hate you to get hurt in the process of helping me save Bellbrae. We both love this place but it doesn’t mean we have to fall in love with each other.’
Layla painted a stiff smile on her lips but something inside her shrivelled. Of course, he would never fall in love with her. Why would he? She was more or less invisible to him and had been for the past fourteen years. But for him to rule the possibility out at the get-go was still a slap in the face to her feminine ego. ‘Message received loud and clear.’
He gave a slight nod, the quiet intensity of his gaze unsettling her already shaky equilibrium. ‘Here—I’ll carry your basket downstairs for you.’
He stepped forward to pick up her basket at the same time she bent down to get it. Their hands met on
