Free The Billionaire Boss's Innocent Bride by Lindsay Armstrong Page A

back on. But without the layers of extra clothing she’d worn the first time he’d met her, her lean, slim lines were evident and easy on the eye. He even caught himself on the thought that it was a pity those long, slim, gorgeous legs were covered up…
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There seemed to be a bit of difficulty with Dad, so I suggested it.’
    Alex glanced at him, then resumed eating her veal. ‘How did you get on with him?’
    she asked presently.
    Max Goodwin pushed his plate away. ‘He’s disconcertingly like me in some ways.’
    ‘That’s not so surprising,’ she said with a humorous little look and couldn’t help herself asking, ‘What way, particularly?’
    Max stared towards the braziers and Alex followed the line of his gaze to watch their pale smoke wreath against the navy sky and to see the hearts of the orange flames resemble molten gold. ‘He doesn’t take much on trust.’
    ‘Do you think she, his mother—?’ She stopped and looked down at her plate.
    ‘What?’ he queried, returning his gaze to her.
    ‘Nothing,’ she murmured, and pushed her own plate away. ‘That was delicious. Would it be too much to hope one isn’t about to be tempted by a dessert you simply can’t refuse?’
    ‘Do I think his mother—what, Alex?’
    ‘Look, it’s none of my business.’
    ‘You’ve told me that before, but you are virtually replacing her and we have spent several hours now, you and I, virtually joined at the hip.’
    She looked up to see him watching her with a noticeable spark of irony in his eyes. She took a little breath. ‘That doesn’t mean to say—’
    ‘Oh, for crying out aloud! You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t curious.’ He thumped his empty glass down on the tablecloth.
    She scowled suddenly. ‘All right! I was just wondering how she explained your absence at the same time as telling him you were wonderful!’
    ‘I have no idea,’ he said moodily. Then he closed his eyes briefly. ‘Cathy was, probably still is, like Scheherazade. She’s an artist, she paints, and if there’s such a thing as an artistic temperament she has it in spades. She’s quixotic, she can turn life with her into an Aladdin’s cave of delight or the opposite. She comes and goes between you and her art—or whatever takes her fancy. She’s impossible to pin down but she can be irresistible. She’d have spun Nicky some tale. What she may not have taken into account is—’ He stopped and shrugged.
    ‘Just as there was a threshold over and above which you couldn’t suspend disbelief, Nicky has his own thresholds?’
    The only sound for a long moment was the water lapping against the jetty. Then the soft chink of crockery came from the direction of the kitchen and the lovely aroma of fresh coffee wafted on the air.
    And Max Goodwin said, ‘You’re extraordinarily perceptive for a twenty-one-year-old with such a convent background. How come?’
    Alex pushed her wine glass away and looked at him with the slightest hint of hauteur. ‘I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on my convent background. I was reading widely, and discussing it with my parents, from an early age. You could say they gave me a classic education. Enough to know, anyway, that relationships come in all shapes and sizes. Besides which you only have to look at her to see the allure she possesses and you only have to listen to her to know there’s a passion, a fire in her, whether it’s misdirected or not.’
    She paused for a moment. ‘And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr Goodwin, one doesn’t have to know you for long to realize that if you don’t get what you want, your tolerance threshold is quite limited.’
    ‘Thank you,’ he said courteously. ‘You say that as if it’s something you’ve been dying to get off your chest. So that’s it,’ he added.
    ‘That’s what?’ She looked puzzled.
    ‘Feminine solidarity. You have me well and truly figured for the villain of the piece despite your wide and