The Billionaire's Bridal Bargain(8)

For a fraction of a second, Cesare recalled the pilot striving to persuade him to land a couple of fields away but the prospect of a time-wasting muddy trek to the cottage had exasperated him and he had insisted on being set down as close as possible to his destination. ‘The mistake was mine, not the pilot’s. I chose the landing spot,’ Cesare admitted, startling her with that confession. ‘I know nothing about farming or the care of animals. Naturally I will compensate you and your father for any loss of income that results.’

‘Well, the man can’t say fairer than that,’ Brian Whitaker cut in, sending his furious daughter a warning glance. ‘Let that be the end of it.’

‘Archie was hurt!’ Lizzie protested fierily, shooting Cesare a seething look that warned him that even admitting his mistake was insufficient to soothe her. ‘The flock trampled him at the river. I’m taking him to the vet now for emergency treatment and I haven’t got the time...or the patience...to deal with you!’

Cesare watched in disbelief as his future bride unlocked the rusty vehicle several feet away and began to climb in.

‘You’ve done it now. She treats that stupid dog like her firstborn!’ Brian Whitaker muttered impatiently and retreated back indoors, bowing out of the situation.

With the split-second timing that matched Cesare’s lightning-fast intellect, he strode forward and opened the passenger door of the Land Rover to take the only step left open to him. ‘I’ll accompany you to the vet’s,’ he informed her flatly.

Very much disconcerted by that announcement, Lizzie flicked him a frowning appraisal. ‘You’ll have to hold Archie.’

Cesare, so far out of his comfort zone that he already felt as if he were trapped in something of a nightmare, finally noticed that it was a two-seat vehicle and that the scruffy dog lay comatose on the only seat available for his own use.

Lizzie leapt back out of the car. ‘I’ll move him and then you can get in,’ she told him, racing round the back of the vehicle to scoop up Archie in trembling hands and usher him in.

‘I could drive,’ Cesare pointed out drily.

‘You don’t know where you’re going and I know where the potholes are,’ Lizzie told him incomprehensibly as she very gently rested Archie down on Cesare’s lap. ‘Please make sure he doesn’t fall.’

Tears were choking Lizzie’s throat. Archie was so quiet and he had never been a quiet dog. Right at that very minute, he could be dying, his brave little life and loving spirit ebbing away, and that was why she wasn’t going to waste time arguing with Cesare Sabatino about anything.

‘Is he still breathing?’ Lizzie demanded, turning out onto the road.

‘I can feel his heart beating,’ Cesare proffered quietly, blocking out his uneasy awareness that the vehicle stank of animals and was far from clean. He stroked the still body for want of anything else to do and was startled when the dog twisted his head to lick at his hand.

‘He trusts you,’ Lizzie informed him.

‘He doesn’t have much choice in the matter,’ Cesare fielded, reckoning that he had been sent to Yorkshire solely to suffer. In his opinion she drove like a maniac. He had spent the day travelling and his day had started at six in the morning in Geneva. Now it was eight in the evening and, not only had he not eaten for hours, but he was also convinced that many more hours would pass before he could even hope for the opportunity. He knew she had no idea that he had planned to take her out to dinner and, since he didn’t have a woolly fleece and cloven hooves, it would never occur to Lizzie to feed him.

Unaware of her unwelcome passenger’s thoughts, Lizzie rammed the Land Rover to an abrupt jolting halt in a small car park. Carefully carrying Archie, Lizzie stalked into the surgery, leaving Cesare, a male who was unaccustomed to being ignored, to follow her. An older man greeted them and carried the dog off to be X-rayed, leaving Lizzie and Cesare in the small, dull waiting room.

In consternation, Cesare watched Lizzie fighting off tears again. Driven by a desperate masculine urge to shift her thoughts to what he viewed as more positive issues, he murmured, ‘So, we’re getting married?’

Lizzie marvelled at his lack of compassion and understanding. Did he really think she was in any frame of mind to discuss that while she was waiting to hear whether Archie would live or die? ‘Yes, but it won’t really be a marriage,’ she parried, striving not to look at him because he really had the most stunning dark golden eyes and every time she looked she ended up staring and she didn’t want him to notice her behaving like a silly schoolgirl.

‘We’re not going for gold, then,’ Cesare assumed, referring to the requirement for a child in the will while surveying her down-bent head with a sense of deep dissatisfaction that took him aback. Why was he feeling that way? Common sense suggested that he should settle for taking Athene for a visit to Lionos and think himself lucky to have gained that much from the exchange.

A tangle of silvery hair brushed the delicate cheekbones of Lizzie’s heart-shaped face and she glanced up through the silken veil of her lashes, green eyes clear and direct. ‘Well, yes, we are. I’ve thought of a way round that.’

‘There’s no way round it,’ Cesare informed her impatiently, marvelling at the luminous quality of those tear-drenched eyes.

‘AI,’ she declared quietly.

His straight ebony brows lifted. ‘AI?’

‘Artificial insemination. We use it with the stock and we can do it that way too,’ Lizzie muttered in an undertone, trying not to succumb to discomfiture because he was really staring at her now as if he had never heard of such a process. ‘I mean, that way there’s no need at all for us to get up close and personal. We can both conserve our dignity.’

Cesare was staggered by the suggestion. ‘Dignity?’ he queried thinly, his first reaction being one of male offence until his clever brain examined the suggestion. For him, it would be a win-win situation, he acknowledged grudgingly. He would not have to sacrifice his freedom in any field because the marriage would be a detached charade from start to finish. That was the civilised sensible approach because there would always be the risk that sexual involvement could muddy the waters of their arrangement. But while his intellect reinforced that rational outlook, he discovered that he was curiously reluctant to embrace the concept of a child fathered in a lab rather than in the normal way and equally reluctant to accept that Lizzie Whitaker would never share his bed.

‘Well, obviously neither one of us would want to be put in the position where we would have to have sex with a stranger.’

Without warning, unholy amusement burnished Cesare’s lean, darkly handsome features. ‘I don’t think you know much about the average male.’

Colour flared like a banner in Lizzie’s cheeks. ‘And if that’s the sort of man you are, I don’t think you should be boasting about it!’ she snapped pointedly.

Cesare breathed in slow and deep and resisted the urge to ask her if she ever lightened up. It was something of a shock for him to discover that there was a woman alive utterly impervious to his looks and charisma. He didn’t believe in false modesty and had been well aware since the teen years that he could attract women in droves, a success rating that had only been enhanced by his gradual rise to billionaire status. Lizzie, however, put out no encouraging vibes and was not remotely flirtatious.

Watching the cool forbidding expression spread across his lean bronzed face, Lizzie took fright and said, ‘I’m sorry...I’m too worried about Archie to mind what I say. I didn’t intend to be rude but you must understand that two people with as little in common as we have really do need a get-out clause when it comes to having a baby,’ she framed with a shy upward glance. ‘And if I agree to that, there would be additional safeguards I would require.’

‘Such as?’

Lizzie breathed in deep. ‘You would have to agree to take on the role of acting as a father to the child until it grew up. Obviously we’ll marry and then divorce...whenever.’ Lizzie shifted an uncertain hand. ‘But a child has specific needs from a parent and those needs must be met with love and security from both of us. That would be quite a responsibility for you to take on for the next twenty years and I need to be sure that you’re willing to accept that.’

A very faint darkening of colour across Cesare’s spectacular cheekbones highlighted his discomfiture. He had assumed that Lizzie was planning to discuss the financial rewards for her willingness to fulfil the terms of the will and her true, infinitely more responsible and caring angle of interest had pierced him with a rare sense of guilt. ‘Why are you so willing to take on that responsibility?’ he prompted.

‘I’ve always wanted a child of my own,’ Lizzie responded, quite comfortable and secure in making that admission. ‘But I don’t really want a man to go with the child, so the arrangement you suggested would probably suit me best of all. At the same time I don’t want to raise a fatherless child, so an occasional father such as you would be is even more acceptable.’

Cesare was quietly stunned by those statements. The women he socialised with were never so frank about a desire to conceive either now or in the future. He wondered if she was still in love with her ex or simply some sort of man-hater because it was unusual for so young a woman to decide that she wanted to live her life alone. And then in dawning dismay he heard himself say, ‘Are you gay?’