a pretty poor effort!’
‘I’m not joking.’ Zac spoke quite calmly. ‘I’ll pay you a thousand to pretend to be my fiancée.’
He really was serious, she realised, studying him. Her first inclination was to tell him where he could go with his preposterous proposal, but curiosity held a stronger hand.
‘Just what kind of game are you playing?’ she demanded.
‘No game,’ he assured her. ‘I let my grandfather believe I’d found the girl of my dreams at last. Now he wants to meet her.’
‘Why?’ she asked in some confusion. ‘I mean, why tell him something that obviously isn’t true?’
‘Because it stopped him pressuring me to get married and start a family for a while.’
‘A state you’d naturally abhor.’ Jessica made no attempt to eradicate the sarcasm from her voice. ‘Hardly likely to be a very long-lasting deception, was it?’
Broad shoulders lifted. ‘So I didn’t think too far ahead at the time.’
‘Then why not just tell him the truth and have done with it?’
‘Because he only has a short time to live.’ Zac’s tone was flat. ‘And before you ask, I only found out this morning. I can’t spring it on him now. Hence the desperate straits.’
‘I doubt if you’d find any shortage of takers if you rang around.’
‘Not in the time. You’re my only hope.’
Jessica regarded him in silence for several seconds, grappling with the implications. To do what he was asking her to do would be shameful, but if the alternative meant robbing a dying man of his dearest wish…
‘It’s emotional blackmail!’ she accused.
‘I’m aware of it.’ He studied her set features. ‘If a thousand isn’t enough…’
Green eyes flared. ‘If I do it at all, it certainly won’t be for money!’ She looked at him with distaste. ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself!’
‘Not over this,’ he admitted. ‘I just wanted breathing space. Time to find a woman I could contemplate living with full time.’
‘The main problem might be finding one who could contemplate living with you full time!’ Jessica retorted, bringing a tilt to his lips.
‘Quite possibly.’
But unlikely, she was bound to admit. No man with Zac Prescott’s assets would have difficulty finding a wife.’
‘I’d have thought Leonie might fulfil your every requirement in that direction,’ she said.
‘Leonie?’ He laughed, shaking his head. ‘She’d no more want to marry me than I would her. We’re too much alike.’
‘Opposites attract, similarities endure,’ she murmured.
‘Sometimes, not always.’
‘So what would you consider ideal wife material? Someone who’d hang on your every word and worship the ground you walked on?’
The scorn made little impression. ‘Sounds pretty close.’
‘You’re about fifty years too late then.’
‘So it seems.’ Zac shook his head again, this time in mock despair. ‘I might have to settle for less than the best in the end.’
‘Whoever you did marry would have my heartfelt sympathy!’ It was weak, but the best she could come up with.
‘I’ll pass the message on, if and when,’ he said. ‘To get back to the lesser proposal, if you won’t take money, how about that job? Obviously it wouldn’t be with Prescotts, but I have plenty of contacts.’
Jessica curled a lip. ‘Don’t bother. I’ll be doing it for one reason and one reason only, and that’s to save your grandfather from knowing what a liar you are!’
‘Thanks.’ Zac neither sounded nor looked in any way discomposed by the censure. ‘So we’d better get down to discussing detail. I’ve worked out a potted history for you. All you have to do is memorise it.’
‘Taking it for granted I was going to say yes?’
The grey eyes remained steady. ‘You can learn a lot about someone in a very short time in bed.’
Jessica felt the contraction deep in the pit of her stomach, the sudden wave of heat through her body. ‘You know nothing about me!’ she exclaimed furiously, colouring afresh at the memory of those exploring hands. ‘Nothing intrinsic, at any rate. I can still back out. What would you do then?’
‘I’d be sunk,’ he admitted. ‘But you won’t back out.’
He was right, she conceded with reluctance. However much she might deplore the situation, she’d committed herself.
‘It will be easier if I use my own background,’ she said, with no intention of relinquishing at least that much control.
‘No reason why not,’ he agreed after a moment’s consideration. ‘Probably easier for me too, in fact. I’ll need a few more details though.’
‘I think you’d better fill me in on a few details first. Where exactly is your grandfather, to start with?’
‘Dorset. Near Lyme Regis. They moved down there when he retired.’
Jessica looked at him sharply. ‘They?’
‘He and my grandmother.’ Zac raised a querying eyebrow. ‘Does it make a difference?’
‘It means deceiving two people instead of one—unless you plan on telling your grandmother the truth.’
‘I think she might have enough on her plate for the time being, don’t you?’
Jessica had to agree with that too. The arrival of a waiter to exchange the unfinished desserts for coffee gave her a much needed break. She took hers strong and black in an attempt to clear her mind.
‘You said you only heard the news this morning?’ she queried when they were alone again.
Zac nodded. ‘Grandmother told me when I rang to say I wouldn’t be able to make it this weekend.’
‘The news must have been a real shock.’
A shadow passed over the incisive features. ‘Very much so. I knew he was on medication for angina, and, at eighty, I suppose it was on the cards that he might not have all that long, but I just didn’t expect it this soon.’
He briskened his tone, emotions under firm control again. ‘I haven’t given them a name as yet, so your own will do.’
Jessica held back the acrid comment. ‘How long are we supposed to have known one
